Preparation and Application of Superhydrophobic Copper Mesh by Chemical Etching and In-situ Growth

Abstract

Oily sewage and floating oil in the ocean post a huge threat to the ecological environment, therefore, developing an efficient separation for oil/water mixtures is an urgent need. Currently, superhydrophobic materials exhibit excellent oil/water separation ability. In this study, a superhydrophobic copper mesh prepared by the chemical etching method and the in-situ growth method and the performance evaluation are introduced. The oxide layer on the surface of the copper mesh is first removed by pickling, and then immersed in FeCl3 solution for chemical etching to make the surface rough, stearic acid (SA) is used for in-situ growth to reduce the surface energy, a superhydrophobic oil-water separation copper mesh is obtained. The water contact angle (WCA) of the copper mesh is more than 160°. The copper mesh is chemically stable and can effectively adsorb floating oil and separate the oil-water mixture. After several oil-water separation experiments, the oil-water separation efficiency can still be above 98%. The effects of the concentration of FeCl3 and SA on the contact angle and oil-water separation efficiency are investigated, the results show that when the concentration of FeCl3 is 2% and SA is 1.5%, the WCA and oil-water separation efficiency are the largest. The research used a simple and environmentally friendly method to prepare the oil-water separation copper mesh, which has important application significance for water quality restoration.

Superhydrophobic modified electrodeposited copper surface for fog harvesting

“…These structures are reported to be thin sheets of copper stearate. 27 This sample possesses hierarchical roughness. A small-scale roughness is due to the delicate structure of copper stearate and the large-scale roughness that is imposed from spherical copper, formed at electrodeposition processes which are covered by copper stearate.…”

“…This mechanism, encompassing SA adsorption onto metal surfaces and its subsequent reaction with the metal, leading to the formation of metal stearates, has been previously reported. 27 This research focuses on the creation of superhydrophobic copper surfaces through a two-step process involving copper electrodeposition followed by modification with SA. A thorough study of both processes was carried out.…”

Boosting N2 photoreduction using a ZnO@HCuxS composite with high activity and easy recovery grown on a copper mesh

“…33–35 Immobilization of a photocatalyst can not only solve the problem of difficult recovery, but also overcome the shortcomings of poisoning and poor stability. Copper meshes have good reactivity, low cost and a porous structure, and is mainly used for oil–water separation, 36,37 SERS detection 38 and pollutant reduction. 39,40 The newly prepared supported catalyst with a copper mesh as the substrate has the advantages of simple processing, flexible application, and easy in situ regeneration of the catalyst.…”

Hydrogen bubble-templated electrodeposition of superhydrophobic Zn–Ni films

“…4,5 A superhydrophobic surface is considered to be a material armour because of its beneficial performances of self-cleaning, corrosion resistance, drag reduction, anti-icing, and oil-water separation, and has been used in waterproof, antifouling, self-cleaning, fluid drag reduction, bacteriostasis and other fields. 6–10 Surface rough structure and surface energy are the main factors influencing the surface wettability of materials. 11–15 There are mainly two methods to obtain a superhydrophobic surface, such as constructing rough surfaces of materials and reducing the surface energy.…”