Preparation of superhydrophobic melamine sponges decorated with polysiloxane nanotubes by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method for oil/water separation

Abstract

To remove and recycle oil spills in a low-cost and facile way, we induced ethyltrichlorosilane to assemble into polysiloxane nanotubes by method of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on surface of porous structure of melamine sponge. Obtained melamine sponge showed obvious hydrophobicity. polysiloxane nanotubes were successfully chemical bonded with melamine sponge as fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed. Test of static contact angle (SCA) revealed the surperhydrophobicity of modified melamine sponge. Operation of oil/water separation showed its excellent properties of removing oil spills. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed the surface roughness increased obviously because of the mass-distributed polysiloxane nanotubes. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) characterized the variation of chemical element composition, which indicated the successfully grafting of polysiloxane nanotubes. Therefore, we applied a facile and efficient method to realize the experiment.