Lotus and Poikilotherm Inspired PPy/PDMS@Nonwoven Fabric Sorbent with Superior Photothermal Effects for the Cleanup of High-viscous Crude Oil

Abstract

The frequent occurrence of oil spills not only results in the waste of petroleum resources, but also poses a serious threat to the marine ecological environment. Considering the large amount of crude oils with high viscosity, it is urgent to develop a sorbent capable of efficiently reducing the viscosity for the cleanup of oil spills. Inspired by the “lotus effect” and “poikilotherm which utilize the solar energy for thermoregulation”, the low surface energy material polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polypyrrole (PPy) were loaded over the island nonwoven fabric to fabricate a novel crude oil sorbent material. The nonwoven fabric achieved an efficient photothermal conversion. Wherein, the fluorine-free PDMS was used to hydrophobically modify the nonwoven fabric, endowing it with excellent oil-water separation performance, with a separation efficiency of up to 95%. After 10 cycles, the separation efficiency of PPy/PDMS modified nonwoven fabric (PPy/PDMS@NF) was still above 90%, demonstrating superior recyclability. In addition, the PPy/PDMS@NF possessed the self-cleaning capabilities. Under light conditions, the PPy/PDMS@NF was rapidly heated up, reducing the viscosity of crude oil and enabling the effective recovery of oil spills. Under one sun illumination (1.0 kW·m ^–2), the surface temperature of the PPy/PDMS@NF reached 60.7 °C, and its sorption capacity for high-viscosity crude oil reached 7 g _{crude oil}·g _sorbent ^–1. Thanks to its environmental friendliness and excellent sorption capacity, this work provides a new option for dealing with the high-viscosity marine oil spills.

Keywords

Nonwoven fabric / Crude oil sorption / Photothermal conversion / Oil-water separation / Multifunctional / Hydrophobic effect / Bionics / Self-cleaning

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2024 SIOC, CAS, Shanghai, & WILEY-VCH GmbH