Eco-friendly superwettable functionalized-fabric with pH-bidirectional responsiveness for controllable oil-water and multi-organic components separation

Smart materials with controllable wettability have become one of the current research hotspots. Among them, the pH-responsive superwetting material is considered an ideal material because of its rapid response process and simple response mechanism. However, the pH-responsive materials reported previously could only perform wettability conversion in a single direction. In order to meet the demands of practical applications, it is indispensable to prepare the pH-bidirectional responsive superwetting material which can flexibly transform wettability in both directions. Based on this, a fluorine free and eco-friendly superwetting fabric with pH-bidirectional responsiveness was prepared by free radical polymerization and the combination of micro-nano hierarchical structure. A series of test results verified that the prepared fabric possessed excellent mechanical durability and chemical stability, satisfactory flux and separation efficiency. In addition, this work also successfully employed the prepared pH-bidirectional responsive superwetting fabric to realize the separation of three-phase oil-wateroil mixture. Surprisingly, the prepared fabric was also proved to be effective for the separation of multiple organic components, which was rarely reported in previous researches. Therefore, such pH-bidirectional responsive superwetting fabric will have broad application prospects in the field of oil-water separation and multi-organic components separation under the actual complex environment.

Automated summary

A fluorine-free and eco-friendly superwetting fabric with pH-bidirectional responsiveness was successfully prepared, showing excellent mechanical durability and chemical stability, as well as satisfactory flux and separation efficiency. This fabric was used for the separation of oil-water mixture and multiple organic components, indicating broad application prospects in the field of oil-water separation and multi-organic components separation.