Water pollution caused
by oil spillages has aroused worldwide attention.
Therefore, it is of great significance to develop low-cost, environmentally
friendly materials to remove oil contaminants from water. Herein,
a “green” superhydrophobic sponge made from marine algae
was fabricated by one-step growth of silicone nanofilaments onto a
AgNP-decorated alginate sponge via chemical vapor deposition of an
azeotrope of (CH
3
)
3
SiCl and SiCl
4
. The reaction of the azeotrope with the alginate sponge was termed
“instant”, as it took only a few minutes (5 min) at
room temperature to achieve superhydrophobicity (152.0°). Such
sponges resist high temperatures, UV irradiation, organic solvents,
and mechanical abrasion without losing the superhydrophobicity. The
sponges absorbed oil droplets within seconds (1.3–7.0 s) with
11.7–17.1 g/g of sorption capacities for oils of different
viscous levels (0.56–1775.00 mPa·s). These sponges could
retain 90% of the initial oil sorption capacities after 10 consecutive
oil sorption/desorption cycles. Benefiting from the superhydrophobicity
and superoleophilicity, the sponges also exhibited high efficiency
in oil/water mixture separation. Once the oil/water mixture was injected
into the sponge, oil drops were retained in inner pores while water
was rejected and spouted from the surface. These excellent performances
make the resultant sponge a competitive material for oil spill emergency
remediation.
Developing ceramic materials for thermal insulation is vital for various applications. However, ceramics have been considered intrinsically rigid and brittle due to the limited crystallographic slips and structure collapse during...
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