Fabrication of superwetting non-woven fabric by grafting one-dimensional inorganic nanostructure for efficient separation of surfactant-stabilized organic solvent/water emulsions

Abstract

The cobalt carbonate hydroxide one-dimensional (1D) needle-like nanostructure is grown on the non-woven fabric via hydrothermal method. The 1D interlaced needle-like structure not only reduces the pore size of the non-woven fabric but also provides rough micro-nano structure of the superhydrophilic cobalt carbonate hydroxide/non-woven fabric, which is endowed with superhydrophobicity by coating with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The resulting superwetting non-woven fabrics exhibit high separation efficiency for a series of surfactant-stabilized organic solvent/water emulsions (more than 99.3% for both W/O and O/W emulsions) and preferable recyclability (more than 10 cycles). The fluxes for all W/O and O/W emulsions are above 300 L m−2 h−1. Meanwhile the superhydrophobic fabric exhibits outstanding chemical stability in acid, alkaline and salt solution, and good mechanical durability after abrasion test with sandpaper. The comprehensive performances of the superwetting fabrics based on 1D nanostructure make them possible to be promising material for the separation of organic solvent/water mixtures in polluted water in harsh environments.