Mesoporous carbon spheres modified polyurethane sponge/phase change material composites: Photothermal conversion, thermal storage and efficient recovery of high-viscosity crude oil

Efficient recovery of crude oil spills is still a great challenge for worldwide due to its high-viscosity and low-fluidity. Although the application of solar-heated absorbents in accelerating crude oil recovery has achieved significant progress, solar irradiation intensity is greatly dependent on time, location and weather conditions, which greatly restrict their practical application. In order to solve this problem, a novel phase change material (PCM)-included polyurethane (PU) sponge with simultaneous solar energy conversion and storage capacity was prepared and used for crude oil removal from spill. As the oil adsorption material matrix, the polyurethane (PU) sponge was combined with mesoporous carbon spheres (MCS) first and further encapsulated myristic acid (MA) as latent heat storage material to obtain PU/MCS/MA composite PCMs. The high latent heat value (129.27 J g−1), large porosity, excellent solar-thermal conversion and storage capacity make PU/MCS/MA show remarkable in-situ oil viscosity reduction and it can absorb about 1.08 g cm−3 of crude oil under sunlight. Importantly, due to the encapsulation of MA, PU/MCS/MA can achieve efficient thermal storage to reduce the viscosity of crude oil via releasing latent heat at special circumstances. This study provided a potential strategy for the efficient utilization of clean energy and crude oil spills pollution treatment.