Bio-Inspired Textiles for Self-Driven Oil–Water Separation—A Simulative Analysis of Fluid Transport

Abstract

In addition to water repellency, superhydrophobic leaves of plants such as Salvinia molesta adsorb oil and separate it from water surfaces. This phenomenon has been the inspiration for a new method of oil–water separation, the bionic oil adsorber (BOA). In this paper, we show how the biological effect can be abstracted and transferred to technical textiles, in this case knitted spacer textiles hydrophobized with a layered silicate, oriented at the biology push approach. Subsequently, the transport of the oil within the bio-inspired textile is analyzed by a three-dimensional fluid simulation. This fluid simulation shows that the textile can be optimized by reducing the pile yarn length, increasing the pile yarn spacing, and increasing the pile yarn diameter. For the first time, it has been possible with this simulation to optimize the bio-inspired textile with regard to oil transport with little effort and thus enable the successful implementation of a self-driven and sustainable oil removal method.