A superwettable functionalized-fabric with pH-sensitivity for controlled oil/water, organic solvents separation, and selective oil collection from water-rich system

Recently, in consideration of environmental pollution and serious impact on human health caused by the frequent occurrence of oily wastewater and oil leakage accidents, a multifunctional superwetting material is urgently desired to solve this issue. Therefore, in this article, a simple, moderate, and environmentally friendly strategy has been developed by polymerizing in situ growth of the fabric and adding two kinds of micro-nanoparticles such as silica and magnesium oxide that can improve the roughness. The synergy makes it possible to fabricate a pH-sensitive multifunctional fabric integrated with controllable wettability, good mechanical durability as well as outstanding reusability. Based on such fabric with a variety of outstanding properties, it can be utilized to separate various oil-water mixtures. For instance, two separation devices (vertical-type and T-type) have been designed to successfully separate diverse oil/water mixtures by gravity driving and wettability change, showing high permeation flux and excellent separation efficiency. Meanwhile, it can also preserve the ability to separate in situ rapidly multiple oil/water/oil mixtures. More importantly, by right of as-prepared superwetting fabric, a device that can not only capture oil slicks on the water surface, but also capture oil under the water has been designed with splendid separation efficiency, providing a new design idea for the offshore oil spills. Moreover, it is amusing that the obtained superwetting fabric is capable of separating immiscible organic solvents. Impressively, the obtained fabric also preserves the capacity in separating in situ phenol from mixed organic system through chemical reaction. Consequently, in view of the diversified characters and wide application of the resulted fabric, it has an extensive application prospect in diverse industries, especially in the oil-water separation.