“…Over the past few years, many groups including ours have reported a variety of man-made superhydrophobic/superoleophilic materials, which were used for coating, − catalytic synthesis, ,,− adsorption of organics and oil/water separation, etc. ,− Even so, to our knowledge, selective adsorption toward metal ions on such interface materials in aqueous systems has not been reported previously. This could be due to the surface of superhydrophobic/superoleophilic materials with low surface energy, which generally does not possess coordination groups for the chemical adsorption of metal ions because such groups are always hydrophilic. , However, the superhydrophobic/superoleophilic interface properties have still offered new inspiration to design an integrated multifunctional surface for tuning the selective adsorption processes, namely, to intentionally construct the inverted aqueous adsorbent, which can both effectively prevent nonselective physical adsorption of metal ions by virtue of its superhydrophobic barrier and favor the adsorption of organics on its superoleophilic interface, thereby improving the adsorption selectivity of metal ions and adsorption capacity of organics via chemisorption and physisorption in the cooperative manner controlled by functionalized interfaces in aqueous systems.…”