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Nano Research 2022, 15(11): 9921-9925 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4249-y
Research Article | Issue | Published: 19 March 2022

Recycling plastic waste into multifunctional superhydrophobic textiles

Show Author's Information Qinglang Ma1,5,  Zhiying Wu2,  Vlad Andrei Neacșu2,  Sai Zhao6,  Yu Chai6,  Hua Zhang2,3,4( )
Frontiers Science Center for High Energy Material, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education, Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518057, China
Center for Programmable Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Department of Physics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Keywords:
superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, waste recycling, oil water separation
Topics:
Superhydrophobicity
Cite this article:
Ma Q, Wu Z, Neacșu VA, et al. Recycling plastic waste into multifunctional superhydrophobic textiles. Nano Research, 2022, 15(11): 9921-9925. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4249-y
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

The plastic pollution has become one of the top environmental concerns. Substantial effort has been devoted into recycling waste plastic materials in a facile and economical way. In this work, we have successfully recycled a common type of plastic waste, i.e., polystyrene (PS), into value-added functional materials through a cost-effective and facile dip-coating method. The resulted mixture of waste PS and SiO2, referred to as PS/SiO2, coated textile material is superhydrophobic and superoleophilic, showing an excellent resistance towards corrosive solutions (acid, alkaline, and saline), high temperature treatment, and mechanical abrasion. As a proof-of-concept application, the PS/SiO2-coated textile is used to selectively separate oil/water mixtures through either absorption or filtration method. It also exhibits a surface self-cleaning property, which may be used as fabrics for dust-preventing cloths. Our work offers a new strategy to treat the waste for preparation of novel low-cost superhydrophobic materials for various applications.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Recycling plastic waste into multifunctional superhydrophobic textiles

Show Author's information Qinglang Ma1,5, Zhiying Wu2, Vlad Andrei Neacșu2, Sai Zhao6, Yu Chai6, Hua Zhang2,3,4( )
Frontiers Science Center for High Energy Material, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education, Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518057, China
Center for Programmable Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Department of Physics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China

Abstract

The plastic pollution has become one of the top environmental concerns. Substantial effort has been devoted into recycling waste plastic materials in a facile and economical way. In this work, we have successfully recycled a common type of plastic waste, i.e., polystyrene (PS), into value-added functional materials through a cost-effective and facile dip-coating method. The resulted mixture of waste PS and SiO2, referred to as PS/SiO2, coated textile material is superhydrophobic and superoleophilic, showing an excellent resistance towards corrosive solutions (acid, alkaline, and saline), high temperature treatment, and mechanical abrasion. As a proof-of-concept application, the PS/SiO2-coated textile is used to selectively separate oil/water mixtures through either absorption or filtration method. It also exhibits a surface self-cleaning property, which may be used as fabrics for dust-preventing cloths. Our work offers a new strategy to treat the waste for preparation of novel low-cost superhydrophobic materials for various applications.

Keywords: superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, waste recycling, oil water separation

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 28 December 2021
Revised: 10 February 2022
Accepted: 17 February 2022
Published: 19 March 2022
Issue date: November 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Q. L. M. acknowledges the support from Beijing Institute of Technology Research Fund Program for Young Scholars and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22105021). H. Z. thanks the financial support from ITC via Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), and the start-up grant (No. 9380100) and grants (Nos. 9610478, 7020013, and 1886921) from City University of Hong Kong.

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