pH-Responsive smart non-woven fabrics (NWFs) with double switchable wettability between superhydrophilicity-superhydrophobicity-superhydrophilicity to oil/water separationElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c9nj00409b

• Main Authors: Zhang, Zhibin, Yu, Hang, Guo, Jiahong, Bai, Zhiwei, Zhang, Shiping, Zhang, Yajuan, Wang, Jikui
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: 22.04.2019
• ISSN: 1144-0546; 1369-9261
• DOI: 10.1039/c9nj00409b

pH-Responsive smart non-woven fabrics (NWFs) with double transformations were prepared via the in situ grafting of Ag nanoparticles through an oxidation-reduction reaction and were modified using a mixed thiol-molecule solution, including HS(CH 2 ) 10 CH 3 , HS(CH 2 ) 10 COOH and HS(CH 2 ) 11 OH. A NWF continuously separates immiscible oil-water mixtures with high selectivity and has considerable flux under gravity. The wettability of NWFs with an optimal thiol concentration shows reversible switches between superhydrophilicity-superhydrophobicity-superhydrophilicity, which corresponds to different conditions such as acidic, neutral and basic. The as-prepared NWFs had great oil absorption capacities and possessed high oil-water separation efficiency. This simple approach to fabricate pH-responsive NWFs has provided a facile and versatile strategy for effectively separating oil-water mixtures, which can be further applied for water treatment, purification of solvents or fuels and so on. pH-Responsive smart non-woven fabrics (NWFs) possess double switchable wettability and excellent selectivity, separation efficiency and mechanical properties for recyclability.