Abstract
Abstract Hierarchical structures have attracted considerable interest due to their super-oleophobic/super-hydrophobic behavior. However, it is rare to present a novel additive manufacturing (AM) approach to fabricate hierarchical metal structures (HMSs). A micro/nano mixture ink was deposited on a substrate and a laser was used to selectively scan the ink layer. A new layer of ink was deposited on the previous consolidation layer during manufacturing. The surfaces of the as-sintered HMSs exhibit inherently super-hydrophilic and super-oleophobic behavior with a 155° contact angle (CA) with oil. Furthermore, the HMSs were successfully turned into super-hydrophobic and super-oleophilic mode (with a 152° CA) after surface modification with a solvent-free, electrostatic polytetrafluoroethylene particle deposition. They can be used as oil/water separation media by the functional surfaces existing in the pore channels. The experimental study of HMSs shows an effective removal of oil contaminants from water. The developed process also possesses an advantage of AM of HMSs with complex shapes in ambient air under the protection of an organic ink. Importantly, the present approach could be extended to a vast number of HMSs, for the preparation of highly durable functional materials for various applications.
Highlights
Oil contamination is a critical issue that impacts the global environment
After the first layer of the organic solvent was deposited and sintered, another layer would be spread on the previous sintered layer, and this process was repeated until a solid hierarchical metal structures (HMSs) part was fabricated, and the 3D parts were manufactured with a slicing space of 0.04 mm
When copper and stainless steel were exposed to the same laser irradiation conditions, the heating rate of stainless steel would be higher than that of copper
Summary
Oil contamination is a critical issue that impacts the global environment. For the cleaning of oily wastewater generated in remote and extreme conditions, high performance devices have to be developed for the oil/water separation. Due to strong synergistic magnetic–dielectric effects, the multistrata core–shell composites show excellent microwave absorption capability and high temperature oxidation resistance Sorbent materials, such as polyurethane [19], polyvinyl-alcohol formaldehyde [20], poly aerogel [21], carbon soot [22], and graphene/polymer aerogels, are considered as promising media for oil/water separation [23]. An array copper layer with reduced friction was fabricated by using SLM of Cu nanoparticlebased organic inks, showing the capability of ink-based SLM (ISLM) for surface micro-texturing [37], and this technique was used to fabricate a nano-scaled amorphous carbon-coated Cu layer with super-hydrophobic behavior by decomposing the polymer in the solvent [42], showing that ISLM is a potential technique to fabricate functional structures. ANSI 304 stainless steel plates with a thickness of 2 mm were cleaned three times in an ultrasonic bath with an ethanol/water (1:1) solution for 5 min before being used as substrates
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