3D MXene Sponge: Facile Synthesis, Excellent Hydrophobicity, and High Photothermal Efficiency for Waste Oil Collection and Purification

Abstract

Photothermally assisted superhydrophobic sponges play a vital role in the fields of waste oil collection, oil purification, and solar desalination. However, the widely reported superhydrophobic sponges with photothermal efficiency usually suffer from a post-/premodification process of harmful materials, high loading content of photothermal agents, and low photothermal efficiency. Herein, an MXene-based melamine sponge (MS) was facilely fabricated by hydrogen bonding interaction between the amino groups on the skeleton of the MS and the polar groups on the surface of the as-exfoliated 2D MXene Ti3C2T x nanosheets. Interestingly, the as-fabricated MXene sponge exhibits excellent hydrophobicity and high photothermal efficiency under an extremely low loading of MXene Ti3C2T x nanosheets (0.1 wt %). Moreover, the highly hydrophobic sponge also possesses a high oil absorption capacity as high as 176 times of its own weight and keeps stable under multiple absorption/desorption cycling tests. Surprisingly, the surface temperature of the MXene sponge can quickly reach 47 °C under illumination and has good reproducibility during multiple light on/off cycles. The excellent photothermal performance and large oil absorption capacity of the MXene sponge endow the highly hydrophobic sponge with fast solvent evaporation speed and high-purity waste oil collection (99.7 wt % dichloromethane) under illumination, which holds great promise for oil/water separation, leaked oil collection, and photo-driven waste oil collection and purification applications. It is envisioned that this work can open a new strategy for new designs of 3D multifunctional sponges for high-performance waste oil collection and purification.

Scalable, superelastic, and superhydrophobic MXene/silver nanowire/melamine hybrid sponges for high-performance electromagnetic interference shielding

“…The strong hydrogen bonding can be formed between the surface termination groups (-OH, -F) of MXene nanosheets and melamine molecular chains (NH 2 , NH, and imine), which provides a tight interfacial adhesion force and enhances the structural stability of the hybrid sponge. 44,45 Some of the sponge pores are covered by MXene nanosheets, but the coverage area is not continuous, which is not conducive to rapid electron migration (Fig. 3b).…”

MXene in core–shell structures: research progress and future prospects

“…In the same manner, the assembly of 2D MXene into a 3D architecture prepared as the core, at the same time, provides a solution for the stacking problems related to MXene. 117 The 3D structure allows effective transformation of its high surface area, which is beneficial to applications including better ion diffusion for electrochemical energy storage, 171 an efficient electrocatalyst for water splitting, 68 a hydrophobic sponge for waste oil collection and purification, 172 etc.…”

Nanoengineering of Tin Monosulfide (SnS)‐Based Structures for Emerging Applications

“…physicochemical properties and promising applications, such as energy, detection, catalysis, and optoelectronics. [36,41,51,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82] Compared with the rapid progress in 0D and 1D SnS nanostructures, there are much less reports on SnS nanostructures, their synthetic strategies and fascinating properties. In 2018, Sutter et al [83] employed in situ microscopy during molecular beam epitaxy to study the fundamental growth mechanisms of SnS.…”