Solar-Assisted Fast Cleanup of Heavy Oil Spill by a Photothermal Sponge
Type
ArticleAuthors
Chang, JianShi, Yusuf
Wu, Mengchun

Li, Renyuan

Shi, Le

Jin, Yong

Qing, Weihua
Tang, Chuyang
Wang, Peng

KAUST Department
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
Environmental Science and Engineering Program
Date
2018Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/627610
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Rapid cleanup of heavy oil spill is always considered as a great challenge because the conventional porous oil sorbents cannot efficiently remove them due to the high viscosity of the oil (>1000 mPa·s). In this work, we take advantage of the photothermal effect to heating the heavy oil by using sunlight as energy source to significantly reduce the viscosity of the heavy oil and thus to achieve a fast heavy oil cleanup. A carbon nanotube (CNT) modified polyurethane sponge was fabricated as photothermal sorbent that exhibited superhydrophobicity, superoleophilicity, as well as outstanding absorption capacity of heavy oil. Thanks to the excellent photothermal effect of CNTs, the modified sponge achieved nearly full sunlight absorption (99%). The resulting solar heating effectively reduced the viscosity of the heavy oil, which enabled the modified sponge to quickly absorb heavy oil of 20 times its own weight under sun illumination. This solar-assisted heavy oil sorbent design is promising for future remediation of viscous oil-spills.Citation
Chang J, Shi Y, Wu M, Li R, Shi L, et al. (2018) Solar-Assisted Fast Cleanup of Heavy Oil Spill by a Photothermal Sponge. Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c8ta00779a.Sponsors
This work was supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) center competitive fund (CCF) fund awarded to Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) and WDRC CFP awarded to The University of Hong Kong.Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)Journal
Journal of Materials Chemistry Aae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1039/c8ta00779a