Superhydrophobic hBN-Regulated Sponges with Excellent Absorbency Fabricated Using a Green and Facile Method

Abstract

The world faces severe environmental, human and ecological problems when major oil spills and organic discharges are released into the environment. And so it is imperative to develop tools and high performance innovative materials that can efficiently absorb these organic discharges. Furthermore, green, facile methods to produce these advanced materials are also needed. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel porous supersponge based on melamine coated with hBN. This superhydrophobic sponge (with a contact angle >150°) exhibits excellent absorption performance for oils and organic solvents, including good selectivity, high capacity (up to 175 g·g−1) and extraordinary recyclability (less than 20% decline after 30 cycles of absorption/squeezing). The synthetic procedure required only ultrasonication and immersion of the sponge in aqueous hBN solution, being a green, cost-effective and scalable production methodology. By virtue of the straightforward and cost-effective fabrication method, along with the excellent absorption performance, hBN-decorated sponges have great promise for real world practical application in the field of oil spills and organic leakage cleanup.

Facile synthesis of a triptycene‐based porous organic polymer with a high efficiency and recyclable adsorption for organic dyes

“…According to previous reports, q e of any adsorbent is highly dependent on the contact time with the adsorbate, and time‐dependent adsorption at equilibrium between TPOP–SO 3 H and MB/DSB was studied . Figure clearly shows that TPOP–SO 3 H initially adsorbed MB or DSB with a high speed; afterward, both q e and R climb to reach a plateau as the contact time increased further and exhibited adsorption at equilibrium after 150 and 60 min for MB and DSB, respectively.…”

“…Traditional porous adsorbents, such as zeolites, oriented clay, montmorillonite, molecular sieve, and activated carbon, have been successfully applied to remove the organic dyes, but their low adsorption capacity ( q e ) and poor reusability have driven researchers to explore more efficient adsorbents further . Therefore, the synthesis of novel adsorbents with high dye q e and removal efficiency ( R ) values is still of great significance and a matter of practical importance .…”

Commercial Sponges as A Novel Technology for Crude Oil Removal from Seawater and Industrial Wastewater: A Review

“…This type of sponge is very special because of owning privilege advantages, such as high porosity (>99%), abundant pore canal, large surface area, low density (4-12 mg/cm 3 ), low cost, excellent elasticity, the ability of chemical modification and high thermal and mechanical stability [47,[54][55][56]. As a result, based on the above unique properties, melamine sponges are being used for the fabrication of advanced crude oil absorption materials [57].…”

Novel Superhydrophobic Sand and Polyurethane Sponge Coated with Silica/Modified Asphaltene Nanoparticles for Rapid Oil Spill Cleanup

“…Consequently, fabrication of superhydrophobic materials (with a water contact angle > 150°) is proposed as the cost-effective plan to clean up the oil pollutants from the water surface [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The challenges provide motivation for the development of new oil spill recovering technologies based on the production of superhydrophobic nanomaterials to form a rough surface coating on dust, sand, fibers, foams, and sponges with controlled wettability [ 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”