In situ modification of melamine sponge by MgAl-LDH with super-hydrophobicity and excellent harsh environment tolerance for high flux emulsion separation

Effective treatment of oily wastewater, particularly oil-water emulsions, has been a significant issue that is threatening human society. Developing a simple, efficient, and stable super-hydrophobic material is appealing for the application of oil-water separation. In this study, an in-situ growing approach was proposed to create a super-hydrophobic MgAl-LDH modified melamine sponge (MA-LDH@MS) with a contact angle of 163.2. The surface roughness and physicochemical stability of MS were improved by MgAl-LDH microcrystals, resulting in outstanding environment tolerance against a variety of difficult circumstances such as strong acid and alkaline (pH = 1-14), high salinity (10-60 wt parts per thousand), UV exposure (254 nm, 15 days), and mechanical compression (50-200 cycles). Furthermore, the prepared super-hydrophobic MA-LDH@MS exhibited excellent oil adsorption capa-bility (70.5-137.2 g.g(-1)) and high emulsion separation efficiency (more than 95%) with a throughput of 6.2 x 10(3) L m(-2)h(-1).This work demonstrates a facile synthesis technique for producing stable super-hydrophobic monolithic materials with considerable potential for oil-water separation.

Automated summary

This study developed a super-hydrophobic material through an in-situ growing approach, which showed excellent environmental tolerance and separation efficiency in oil-water separation, demonstrating its potential for practical application.