Excellent photo-thermal performance of a new superhydrophobic material with PPCPS for crude oil separation

With the frequent occurrence of petroleum product spills, it caused serious economic losses and ecological problems. In this study, covalent organic framework (COF) was first grown by in situ polymerization on a polyurethane sponge (PU). Subsequently, the resulting product was modified with polydopamine (PDA) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to obtain PDMS/PDA/COF-modified polyurethane sponge (PPCPS). After testing, PPCPS was shown to have superhydrophobic properties with a contact angle of up to 154.42°. The material for oil–water mixture separation efficiency was very high, after 50 times of circulation still reached more than 99.6 %. It had excellent adsorption capacity for a variety of oils and organic solvents, such as carbon tetrachloride oil-absorbing capacity could be 48.7 times. Its structure was stable under complex chemical environments and mechanical external forces, with good flame retardancy. In addition, the material had excellent photothermal conversion capacity, with a temperature of up to 70.1 °C at 1 kW/m 2 light intensity, which could effectively reduce the viscosity of crude oil. COF and PDA synergistically enhanced photothermal heating and crude oil adsorption, enabling efficient crude oil separation and cyclic reuse.