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Molecular and nanostructure designed superhydrophilic material with unprecedented antioil-fouling property for diverse oil/water separation

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Abstract

The design and development of new advanced superwetting porous membranes with antioil-fouling performance are still rare and highly desirable because of their potential widespread applications. A metallic phosphate nanoflower-covered mesh membrane with superhydrophilic and unprecedented antioil-fouling properties is prepared by an exceptionally simple and effective in-situ solution corrosion method. As demonstrated, the outstanding antioil-fouling property of the resulting mesh membrane is connected with the special phosphate group and the three-dimensional (3D) nanoflower structure. Owing to the antioil-fouling property, upon to water, the oil-fouled mesh membrane can keep the surface free of various kinds of oils, including viscous crude oil to light n-hexane. Thanks to its unprecedented self-cleaning property, the superhydrophilic mesh membrane can effectively separate different oil/water mixtures without prior wetted by water, exhibiting great potential for practical spilled oil remediation.

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Correspondence to ZheCun Wang.

Additional information

This work was supported by the Scientific Research Funding Project of the Education Department of Liaoning Province (Grant No. LJ2020QNL002).

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The supporting information is available online at tech.scichina.com and link.springerlink.com. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Wang, Z., Guan, M., Yang, X. et al. Molecular and nanostructure designed superhydrophilic material with unprecedented antioil-fouling property for diverse oil/water separation. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 65, 1273–1282 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2044-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2044-7

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