Efficient oil–water separation coating with robust superhydrophobicity and high transparency

There has been a growing interest in oil–water separation due to the massive economic and energy loss caused by world-wide oil spill. In the past decades, a new type of superhydrophobic surface has been developed for the efficient oil–water separation, but its large-scale use is significantly limited by its expensive, sophisticated, and fragile roughness structure. Meanwhile, to handle complex operating conditions, the transparency of the superhydrophobic surface has been more attractive due to its potential visual oil–water separation and optical application scenarios. Herein, we showed a simple and versatile strategy to fabricate superhydrophobic coating with robustness and high transparency. Subsequently, this multifunctional superhydrophobic coating was utilized for oil–water separation and indicated excellent separation efficiency. In this strategy, candle soot composed of carbon nanoparticles was deposited onto the substrate and used as a rough surface template. Then, a filmy and hard silica shell was modified onto this template via chemical vapor deposition to reinforce the roughness structure. Following, this soot-silica coated substrate was calcined in air to remove the candle soot template. Finally, based on a rational surface design, this robust silica coating achieved excellent superhydrophobicity thereby showing inherently oil–water separation benefits. This reinforced superhydrophobic coating presented robust superhydrophobicity even after 410 s sand impacting with the height of 40 cm and 20 cycles of sandpaper abrasion. Also, it retained excellent oil–water separation efficiency even after reuses.