A Facile and Effective Method to Fabricate Superhydrophobic/Superoeophilic Surface for the Separation of Both Water/Oil Mixtures and Water-in-Oil Emulsions

Superhydrophobic/superoleophilic surfaces (water contact angle greater than 150° with low hysteresis, with an oil contact angle smaller than 5°) have a wide-range of applications in oil/water separation. However, most of the essential methods to fabricate this kind of surface are complex, inflexible, and costly. Moreover, most methods focus on separating immiscible oil and water mixtures but lack the ability to demulsify surfactant-stabilized emulsions, which is widely present in industry and daily life. In this study, a facile and effective method was developed to fabricate superhydrophobic/superoleophilic surfaces that can be easily applied on almost all kinds of solid substrates. The treated porous substrates (e.g., steel mesh; cotton) can separate oil/water mixtures or absorb oil from a mixture. Furthermore, the compressed treated cotton is capable of demulsifying stabilized water-in-oil emulsions with high efficiency. The simple, low-cost, and material-unrestricted method provides an efficient way to separate oil/water mixtures of various kinds and has great potential in energy conservation and environmental protection.