A Fluoride-Free and Super-Wetting Functionalized-Material with pH-Responsiveness for Controllable Separation of Multiphase Oil/Water Mixtures

Nowadays, oily wastewater seriously endangers human health and living environment. Intelligent materials with switchable wettability gear up the broad application prospect in controllable oil/water separation and have received extensive attention. Herein, a simple and novel fluoride-free method for preparing pH-responsive super-wetting material by monomer polymerization is reported. Surprisingly, the as-prepared smart material can produce reversible wettability changes between superhydrophobicity/superoleophilicity and superhydrophilicity/underwater superoleophobicity by adjusting various pH values. Based on this fresh phenomenon, it can be used to separate various oil/water mixtures on-demand with high separation performance. It is worth noting that the smart fabric also separates mixtures of highly corrosive liquids and oils. Moreover, the smart fabric also has excellent self-cleaning and low surface adhesion. In addition, it also shows excellent mechanical and chemical stability under harsh conditions. All these advantages show that the smart fabric can play a vital function in solving the related severe conditions of marine oil pollution and industrial wastewater.