Facile design of superhydrophobic and superoleophilic copper mesh assisted by candle soot for oil water separation

Abstract

Oil water separation techniques have attracted more and more attention due to the increasing accidents of oil spills in marine transportation, food, and other industry fields. Oily waste water and water-cut oil are harmful to the ecological environment and human health. However, traditional separation methods posed low efficiency and high cost. So low cost, simple process and high efficiency separation materials are urgently needed. In this work, a low cost carbon nanoparticles acted as hydrophobic materials were used to modify rough copper mesh during the candle combustion. Surface morphology was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), and surface wettability was tested by contact angle (CA) meter.Experimental results showed that water CA of the mesh after modification were above 150°, and oil CA is less than 5°, which showed good super-hydrophobicity and superoleophilicity. Additionally, the modified mesh also exhibited pronounced chemical stability, thermal stability, corrosion resistance, and oil/water separation properties with high oil flux (4378Lm−2h−1) and oil–water separation efficiency (>90%). Moreover, the modified mesh posed high separation efficiency and oil flux after 30 reused cycles. The modification process is short time consuming and low cost without any organic reagent and complicated chemical reaction. Therefore, it is believed that the facile fabrication proposed in this work may provide a novel strategy for oil water separation membrane and make the modified mesh a promising tool for application in oil-water separation.