Multifunctional cotton fabric with favorable hydrophobicity, electrical conductivity and photothermal effect for contaminants removal and oil detection

The fabrication of multifunctional fabric using cost-effective and commercial materials is crucial for industrial production and practical applications. This paper presents a low-cost, facile, and ecofriendly approach for constructing a multifunctional fabric with commercial products including cotton fabric, pen ink, and poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The as-obtained multifunctional cotton fabric exhibits favorable hydrophobicity, electrical conductivity, photothermal effect as well as high stability against acid and alkaline environments for 7 days. In addition, it can sustain hydrophobicity against 200 cycles of abrasion and 100 h of UV radiation. More importantly, the cotton fabric is qualified for oil/water separation, oil detection, water evaporation, and water purification. As compared with normal evaporation, the water evaporation rate accelerated by modified fabric is up to 233 %. This work provides a new opportunity for integrating multiple functions onto a cotton fabric for contaminants removal and oil detection.

Automated summary

The study presents a low-cost and ecofriendly method to fabricate a multifunctional fabric with various applications such as oil/water separation, oil detection, water evaporation, and water purification.