Zero-Material Cost Production of Soil-Coated Fabrics with Underwater Superoleophobicity for Antifouling Oil/Water Separation

Abstract

Soil-coated fabrics were fabricated by scrape-coating of soil slurry onto cotton fabrics. The raw materials, soil, and cotton fabrics were, respectively, obtained from farmland and waste bed sheets, making the method a zero-material cost way to produce superwetting membrane. The superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic soil-coated fabrics exhibit high efficiency (>99%), ultra-high flux (~45,000 L m−2 h−1), and excellent antifouling behavior for separating water from various oils driven by gravity. The simple fabrication and superior performance suggest that the soil-coated fabric could be a promising candidate as a filtration membrane for practical applications in industrial oily wastewater and oil spill treatments.

Keywords

• oil/water separation
• soil
• cotton fabric
• underwater superoleophobicity
• antifouling