UV-Cured Fluoride-Free Polyurethane Functionalized Textile with pH-Induced Switchable Superhydrophobicity and Underwater Superoleophobicity for Controllable Oil/Water Separation

Abstract

Design and fabrication of smart surfaces for separation of oily water have been developed rapidly. Nevertheless, construction of these smart surface materials by using green and sustainable paths for intelligent separation of oily water still faces huge challenges. The aim of this study was to develop a facile, sustainable, and energy-efficient approach for the fabrication of smart coatings with pH-responsive switchable wettability. The coating was formed on the textiles from UV-cured fluoride-free pH-responsive polyurethane (pH-PU). The wettability of obtained textiles could switch reversibly between superhydrophobicity and underwater superoleophobicity due to the protonation and deprotonation of the pH-PU under different pH conditions, which was used to successfully separate either oil or water from oily water with high separation efficiencies. More importantly, oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions could all be selectively separated with high water flux and oil purity by as-fabricated textiles, and these pH-PU-functionalized textiles or sponges effectively performed for oil collection of oil spilled on water. Our work provided a fast, economical, and sustainable pathway to prepare smart coatings with switchable wettability for both environmental protection and energy-saving merits.

Antiviral Nanomaterials for Designing Mixed Matrix Membranes

“…In addition, a structure or performance that is difficult to demonstrate by conventional membrane fabrication methods can be implemented with hydrogel or aerogel membranes. This novel membrane structure can be fabricated using many combinations of nanomaterials such as graphene, polymer, metal, metal-oxide, and metal-organic framework, and can be applied in various situations according to the application conditions because there are multiple methods such as polymerization, ultraviolet curing, sol-gel reaction, and hydrothermal reaction to form a hydrogel or aerogel [ 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 ].…”

Design of Active Interfaces Using Responsive Molecular Components

“…The electrostatic interactions are sufficient to bring about structural changes, i.e., changes in porosity, as well as to alter the interaction with the to be separated molecular components. In several recent examples, Shami et al, Zeng et al, and Chen et al show effective oil–water separation through pH‐responsive electrostatic interactions in an carboxylated electrospun polymer mesh, a carboxylated click‐functionalized fabric and a UV‐cured amino‐functionalized polyurethane textile, respectively. The modularity of this approach is demonstrated by the efficient water separation at low pH paired with efficient oil separation at high pH for the carboxylated systems, whereas the reverse functionality is realized for the amino‐functionalized textile.…”

Preparation and Properties of Biobased, Cationic, Waterborne Polyurethanes Dispersions from Castor Oil and Poly (Caprolactone) Diol

“…However, most of the WPUs molecules have linear structure and some properties of WPU still need to be improved further, such as thermal stability, water resistance, brittleness, etc. [14,15]. To improve these properties, great effort has been made to accelerate the development of WPUs [16][17][18][19].…”