Photoresponsive oil sorbers

Abstract

A photoresponsive oil sorber (POS) with a hydrophobic, photoresponsive core and shell has been synthesized via suspension polymerization. Lauryl acrylate, isodecyl acrylate, and tert‐butylstyrene were used as monomers, 4‐(methacrylamino)azobenzene (Azo‐M) used as photoresponsive monomer, and bis(methacryloylamino)azobenzene (Azo‐CL‐M) used as photoresponsive surface crosslinker. The POS prefers nonpolar solvents. It absorbed 15 times its dry weight in toluene, 19 times its dry weight in chloroform, and 16 times its dry weight in dichloromethane. Rapid and photoresponsive desorption of solvent (86% of solvent expulsed in 30 min) was characteristic. POS is an excellent gasoline absorber rapidly increasing its body weight in its presence. The new POS is less dense than water, and can potentially be used for cleaning oil spills on water. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 55–62, 2010

Role of mechanical factors in applications of stimuli-responsive polymer gels – Status and prospects

“…Absorbency of gasoline diluted with toluene was 12 g/g within 50 min swelling time. Upon irradiation with 350 nm light, 94% of absorbed diluted gasoline was expelled in 60 min while the nonirradiated gels needed more than 1 day to desorb the oil [62]. …”

β-Cyclodextrin-based oil-absorbents: Preparation, high oil absorbency and reusability

“…Oil absorption test 2.6.1. Oil absorbency The oil absorbency (Q) was determined by the method reported in literature (Atta et al, , 2006(Atta et al, , 2007a(Atta et al, , 2007bKulawardana & Neckers, 2010;Wu & Zhou, 2009b;Zhou & Cho, 2001. A quantity of about 0.02 g of dried oil-absorbent sample with known weight (m 3 ) was put into a filter bag and immersed in four different oils (tetrachloromethane, chloroform, xylene, and toluene) at room temperature.…”

“…Zhou et al prepared 4-tert-butylstyrene-EPDM-divinylbenzene graft terpolymer and investigated the oil absorption properties (Wu & Zhou, 2009a, 2009bZhou & Cho, 2001, 2003. Kulawardana and Neckers (2010) reported a photoresponsive oil-absorbent using bis(methacryloylamino)azobenzene as a photoresponsive surface cross-linker. In spite of these interesting works, new oil-absorbent systems are still required to largely improve the properties, in particular the oil-absorbency and the reusability of oil-absorbents.…”

Novel carbon‐nanotube‐based organogels as candidates for oil recovery

“…In the literature, various organogels such as S 2 Cl 2 ‐crosslinked butyl rubber, styrene/long‐chain alkyl acrylate copolymers, docosanyl acrylate and methacrylate copolymers, polyisobutylene/octadecyl acrylate copolymers, cinnamoyloxyethyl methacrylate/isooctyl acrylate and reactive α‐olefin/maleic anhydride copolymers have been reported. Recently, a photo‐responsive oil‐absorbent using bis(methacryloylamino) azobenzene as a photo‐responsive surface crosslinker has also been reported . In addition to oil‐absorbents, several excellent non‐polymeric low molecular weight organogelators have been developed.…”