Ultraviolet-Durable Superhydrophobic Zinc Oxide-Coated Mesh Films for Surface and Underwater–Oil Capture and Transportation

Abstract

In this paper, we report a simple and an inexpensive method for fabricating superhydrophobic/superoleophilic mesh films from microstructured ZnO coatings. The microstructured ZnO coatings, which do not contain any fluorinated compounds, maintain their superhydrophobicity and superoleophilicity after ultraviolet irradiation and display environmental stability. Furthermore, those microstructured ZnO-coated mesh films exhibit good selectivity (even underwater) and excellent recyclability, making them promising candidates for many potential applications, including liquid-liquid separation, water treatment, and liquid transportation.

Superhydrophobic Activated Carbon‐Coated Sponges for Separation and Absorption

“…Clearly, the absorbency of as-treated sponges was far larger than that of highly porous activated carbon and could also compete with that of other recently reported strong absorbents. [3,[11][12][13] In particular, the as-treated sponge showed better CHEMSUSCHEM FULL PAPERS www.chemsuschem.org absorbency for benzene, nitrobenzene, and dichlorobenzene, which are well-known toxic organic contaminants in water treatment (e.g., the absorbency for dichlorobenzene was 6930 wt %). For high-density organic solvents, such as chloroform and phenixin, absorbency reached 7664 and 8586 wt %, respectively.…”

“…Recently, several types of porous materials with excellent surface superhydrophobicity and superoleophilicity have been reported and successfully used for the separation and absorption of organics or oils from water. [8][9][10] The first case for oil/water separation using a superhydrophobic and superoleophilic coating mesh film was reported by Jiang et al [11] Subsequently, superhydrophobic zinc oxide-coated mesh films, [12] superwetting nanowire membranes, [13] superhydrophobic nanoporous polydivinylbenzene, [14] conjugated microporous polymers, (CMPs) [8] and spongy graphene [15] were developed. Owing to their excellent surface wettability, these superwetting materials showed good absorption performance and selectivity for the removal of organics and oils from water.…”

Porous Zinc Oxide Thin Films: Synthesis Approaches and Applications

“…These include spin-coating [101], dip-coating [102], hydrothermal routes [103] and chemical bath deposition (CBD) [104][105][106]. The sol-gel approach first deals with the preparation of a colloidal solution combining zinc precursor powders (zinc acetate dihydrate, zinc nitrate hexahydrate or zinc chloride) and bases (sodium hydroxide), both mixed in organic solvents (ethanol, methanol or 2-propanol).…”

Oil‐Water Separation: A Gift from the Desert

“…Sand also contains Oil-water separation is the subject of theoretical and practical research around the world because of the frequency with which oil spills occur and the increasing amounts of oily industrial wastewater that are produced. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] For example, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 resulted in 780 × 10 6 L of oil being released into the sea. [ 8 ] This accident caused huge economic losses and had serious effects on the environment.…”