From waste epoxy resins to efficient oil/water separation materials via a microwave assisted pore-forming strategy

High performance oil/water separation materials are prepared by physically modifying waste resins. Uniform and interpenetrating nanopores are produced by microwave assisted swelling, and the pore sizes can be simply tuned to meet the demands for efficient separation of various oil/water mixtures by varying the polarity of swelling solvents. This work provides new insight into solving the problem of plastic pollution and a new way to prepare oil/water separation materials.