Oil spills and pollution of oily
wastewater from the industrial
field have not only caused serious economic losses but also imposed
a huge threat to human beings. To solve these issues, the development
of advanced materials and technologies for the purification of oily
wastewater has garnered great concern and become a central topic.
Hence, a superhydrophobic polyurethane (PU) sponge adsorbent is designed
via mussel-inspired coatings by double bonds to PU sponge, followed
by in situ polymerization with 1-hexadecene. The
prepared PU sponge adsorbent (PU@DB@16ene sponge) showed outstanding
mechanical properties including low density, high porosity, and compression
recovery ability. Moreover, the prepared PU@DB@16ene sponge showed
excellent adsorption of oils and organic solvents (up to 187 g g–1) and exhibited superior recyclability. Particularly,
when the PU@DB@16ene sponge was applied in the continuous and rapid
separation of oils and organic solvents, it still showed desired properties
at a rapid velocity of 8.3 L m–3 s–1. Additionally, the PU@DB@16ene sponge could not only adsorb organic
solvents in laboratories but also adsorb crude oil and industrial
waxy oil in practice. Therefore, we proposed a simple and convenient
method to construct PU sponge absorbents with great application prospects,
which would be highly valuable for crude oil and organic solvents
cleanup.
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