Fabrication and research of superhydrophobic paper for oil-water separation

In this work, we developed a facile and effective strategy to fabricate superhydrophobic paper based on micro-nano structure by the synergistic effect of nanoparticles and microporous made by breath figure method, which realized the in-situ self-assembly and integration of amphiphilic copolymer of Poly(St-co-HEMA), nano silica particles (SiO 2 ) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Furthermore, the chemical composition of copolymer, surface morphology and wettability were well characterized by FTIR, 1 HNMR, GPC , SEM and water contact angle measurements, respectively. The molar ratio of St to HEMA reached 15:1 and the concentrations of SiO 2 achieved 15 mg/ml were identified to be the most effective system, which possessed outstanding water repellency with a CA of 165° and a SA of 2° and good self-cleaning ability. Besides, the as-prepared paper maintained the repellency to water under extreme conditions, including low-high temperature, strong acidic or alkaline solutions, ultrasonic treatment and cyclic sandpaper abrasion. Importantly, the superhydrophobicity paper could be utilized as effective functional nanomaterials for the separation of water-oil mixture with efficiency above 90% and repeatable for at least 20 times.