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Tension gradient self-assembly to facilely fabricate polytetrafluoroethylene coatings for oil–water separation

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Abstract

A facile and low-cost method based for tension gradient self-assembly was developed to prepare polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) nanofiber coatings on stainless-steel fiber felts. The PTFE particles were used as building blocks and the self-assembly process was analyzed thoroughly. After being sintered, the PTFE particles were transformed into PTFE nanofibers. The felts coated with the PTFE nanofibers exhibited super-hydrophobicity and superoleophilicity, and could separate a series of oil–water mixtures with high efficiency and good reusability. The coated felts also presented excellent chemical and thermal stabilities. Over all, this approach could easily fabricate ultra-robust oil–water separation materials suitable for industrial applications.

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Acknowledgment

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51775296, 51375253, 51703116, and 20171301886). The authors also acknowledge the support of this work from the State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, China, under grant codes SKLT2017C06 and SKLT2018C06.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R. China

    Dong Feng, Ding Weng, Chaolang Chen & Jiadao Wang

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  1. Dong Feng
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  2. Ding Weng
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  3. Chaolang Chen
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  4. Jiadao Wang
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Correspondence to Jiadao Wang.

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The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.65

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Feng, D., Weng, D., Chen, C. et al. Tension gradient self-assembly to facilely fabricate polytetrafluoroethylene coatings for oil–water separation. MRS Communications 9, 690–696 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.65

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