Plant-inspired layer-by-layer self-assembly of super-hydrophobic coating for oil spill cleanup

Abstract

A versatile, facile, energy-saving, low-cost and plant-inspired self-assembly strategy was used to prepare super-hydrophobic coating in this study. Concretely, an appealing super-hydrophobicity surfacewas obtained by designing amolecular building block phytic acid (PA)-Fe (III) complex to anchor the substrate and hydrophobic thiol groups (HT). The facile and green modification method can be applied to variety of substrates. The as-prepared PA-Fe (III)-HT coated melamine composite sponge possesses both super-hydrophobic and superlipophilicity property. Moreover, it displays superior efficiency to separate the oil-water mixture and splendid oil spill cleanup.