Water purification has attracted a lot of global attention because of the ever-growing threats of water scarcity and environmental pollution crisis. [1] Among them, insoluble oils and organic dyes are notorious contaminants due to the difficulties of removal and degradation. Taking the inspiration of the intriguing oil repellency and anti-adhesion features of fishes, the combination of high surface energy materials with micro/nano hierarchical structure is conducive to achieve the underwater superoleophobicity of solid surfaces. [2] To date, several important methods for preparing superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic materials [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] have been adopted to acquire viable clean water resources from oily wastewater discharged by marine oil spill, crude oil exploitation, and industrial and domestic sewage. Nevertheless, most of the fabrications involve noxious solvents, poor structural stability, and single functionality especially for the case of dye compounds elimination, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] restricting the largescale production and prolonged application.Sustainable green strategies have drawn tremendous interest for addressing low-concentration, highly toxic, and carcinogenic organic pollutants to access renewable water based on solar energy conversion. [21,22] In particular, semiconductors have been widely advocated for photocatalytic environmental remediation via the photo-generated electron-hole pairs in light harvesting systems to eliminate organic dyes in wastewater. [23,24] Among the variety of metal oxide-based photocatalysts, [25][26][27] copper oxide (CuO), as a p-type semiconductor, has been envisioned as a promising candidate in water remediation system relying on its fascinating characteristics of narrow band gap, non-toxicity, low cost and chemical stability. [28] However, the fast recombination rate of electron-holes and the aggregation trend of nanostructured CuO, [29] easily result in the degradation or deactivation of photocatalytic activity.Copper (Cu) meshes, a commonly used material in daily life with advantages of low cost, flexibility and high porosity, are considered as desirable substrates for fabricating oil/water separation materials. [30][31][32][33][34][35] By an oxidation-dehydration process of Cu mesh substrate, Li et al. reported a CuO nanorod-covered mesh for in situ oil removal and visible light photodegradation of soluble dyes. [36] Nevertheless, this mesh still suffers from the weak electron-holes separation efficiency of CuO and poor structural stability, inhibiting its photocatalytic durability and cycling performance in water purification. A feasible method is to couple noble metals such as platinum (Pt), gold (Au), or silver (Ag), with semiconductors. [21,[37][38][39] Metallic nanoparticles can promote light-matter interactions depending on the surface plasmon resonance effect, which contributes to the extended absorption range of visible light. [40,41] Furthermore, the unique noble metal-semiconductor interfaces facilitate th...
Although sundry superhydrophobic filtrating materials have been extensively exploited for remediating water pollution arising from frequent oil spills and oily wastewater emission, the expensive reagents, rigorous reaction conditions, and poor durability severely restrict their water purification performance in practical applications. Herein, we present a facile and cost-effective method to fabricate highly hydrophobic onion-like candle soot (CS)-coated mesh for versatile oil/water separation with excellent reusability and durability. Benefiting from a superglue acting as a binder, the sub-micron CS coating composed of interconnected and intrinsic hydrophobic carbon nanoparticles stably anchors on the surface of porous substrates, which enables the mesh to be highly hydrophobic (146.8 ± 0.5°)/superoleophilic and resist the harsh environmental conditions, including acid, alkali, and salt solutions, and even ultrasonic wear. The as-prepared mesh can efficiently separate light or heavy oil/water mixtures with high separation efficiency (>99.95%), among which all the water content in filtrates is below 75 ppm. Besides, such mesh retains excellent separation performance and high hydrophobicity even after 20 cyclic tests, demonstrating its superior reusability and durability. Overall, this work not only makes the CS-coated mesh promising for durable oil/water separation, but also develops an eco-friendly approach to construct robust superhydrophobic surfaces.
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