Superhydrophobic Fe3O4/OA Magnetorheological Fluid for Removing Oil Slick from Water Surfaces Effectively and Quickly.

Hongbo Wu,Jianfeng Zhou,Liang Hao,Chunhui Chen

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c03857

Abstract

Considering the severe impacts on the economic losses caused by oil spills, it is of great significance to develop an oil-absorbent material for removing the oil slick from the water surface effectively. As a new oil-absorbent material, magnetorheological fluid (MRF) has unsinkability, hydrophobicity, and lipophilicity, which could effectively remove the oil slick on the water surface while repelling water. Particularly, the prepared MRF shows a good response to external magnetic field. MRFs show high oil removal capacity in fresh water, deionized water, and salt water with efficiencies up to 94.39, 93.65, and 92.71%, respectively. Besides, Fe3O4/OA magnetic nanoparticles (MPs) could be reprepared into MRF by simple treatments. After the fifth cycle, the MRF prepared by the recovered Fe3O4/OA MPs still has high oil removal efficiency, and that means the Fe3O4/OA MPs has excellent reusability and stability. The method for preparing MRFs provided in this work is simple and effective, and the MRFs have a promising potential for cleaning oil slick.

Highlights

With the increase of oil explorations and sea transport activities, oil pollution has become a more and more severe problem year by year
It can be noted that there are no secondary peaks in the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns, which means that the sample has high purity
The intensity of each diffraction peak of Fe3O4/OA magnetic nanoparticles (MPs) is weaker than that of Fe3O4 microspheres, which is attributed to the oleic acid (OA) coated on the surfaces of Fe3O4 microspheres

Summary

INTRODUCTION

With the increase of oil explorations and sea transport activities, oil pollution has become a more and more severe problem year by year. Most of the magnetic composite materials concerned are hydrophobic and oleophilic It can get rid of the oil slick quickly and efficiently without secondary pollution. It has been validated that the magnetic composite materials have the promising properties to remove the oil slick on the water surface. Tian et al.[22] used the lubricant oil-based MRF for removing oil slick (lubricant oil), and the efficiency of the lubricant oil-based MRF exceeds by 90%. These oil removal experiments of MRF are carried out on a fresh water surface, and the influence of water salinity was not investigated. Based on the multicycle experiments, the reusability of the Fe3O4/OA MPs was investigated

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS

EXPERIMENTAL SECTION

■ REFERENCES

■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS