Highly recyclable superhydrophobic sponge suitable for the selective sorption of high viscosity oil from water

Inspired by the adhesion of marine mussels, a kind of superhydrophobic oil sorbent was successfully fabricated by robustly immobilizing the micro/nanostructure layer onto the sponge skeleton. The as-prepared sponges possess excellent hydrophobicity with the water contact angle of 154 degrees, which enables the sponge to selectively absorb various oils floating on water surface. The oil sorption capacities of as-prepared sponge for a series of oils can reach 18.3-46.8 g/g. The absorbed oil can be recovered by mechanical squeezing and the resulting sponge can be recycled more than 70 cycles while still keeping high oil sorption capability. More importantly, the obtained sponge has excellent affinity to the high viscosity oils. Therefore, the as-prepared sponge might find practical applications in the large-scale removal of oils especially high viscosity oils from water surface. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.