Magnetically responsive and durable super-hydrophobic melamine sponge material

Developing the super-wetting sponge materials with high selectivity and multitasking separation performance is essential for treatment of the complicated oily wastewater in harsh environments. However, the practical application was limited due to the poor durability, time-consuming fabrication process, etc. In this work, we reported a facial strategy to fabricate the magnetic super-hydrophobic/super-oleophilic material by anchoring the hydrophobic ferroferric oxide nanoparticle/graphene oxide hybrid onto the melamine sponge. Benefiting from the hierarchically regulated micro-/nano- rough structure and low surface energy, the modified sponge exhibited super-hydrophobicity (CA=163.08 ± 1.2°, OCA=0°) and could resist the high/low temperature, chemical corrosion, and harsh physical damage, which contributed the excellent self-cleaning, recyclability, and selective absorption of various oils (63–156 g/g). More importantly, the modified sponge offered the superior multitasking separation performance, including the magnetically driven absorption of oil/water mixture or emulsion, gravity-driven filtration of oil/water mixture, and continuous oil/water separation (up to 98.96%) in harsh conditions. Therefore, the super-hydrophobic melamine sponge with the multifaceted features is a promising candidate for the purification of marine oil spills and industrial oily wastewater.