posted on 2018-10-16, 00:00authored byXiaoyang Wang, Yao Lu, Claire J. Carmalt, Ivan P. Parkin, Xia Zhang
Frequent
oil spills and industrial emissions of organic solvents
cause serious environmental problems. Therefore, finding a high-performance
absorbent material is necessary but also challenging. Here we present
a very simple method to fabricate a magnetic porous silicone that
exhibits excellent absorbency, fast magnetic responsiveness, high
elasticity, stretchability, and high chemical stability. The porous
silicone instantly adsorbs any oil floating on water in a complex
environment under magnetic field driving, without human operation,
and can also separate the oil/water mixture automatically and quickly
at high efficiency using an external pump. The oil absorption capacity
and mechanical properties, such as compressibility and stretchability,
were robust even under corrosive conditions or UV exposure. The robust,
reusable magnetic porous silicone is a promising candidate for the
large-scale industrial separation of organic solvents/water mixtures
in harsh conditions.