Durable superoleophobic fabric surfaces with counterintuitive superwettability for polar solvents

Significance Smart superoleophobic (SOP) cotton fabric surfaces are created only through a controlled fluorosilanization treatment, exhibiting the first‐ever extreme wetting behaviors displaying ultrarepellency to nonpolar oils and counterintuitive superwettability for all polar solvents. The smart durable SOP surfaces, demonstrated chemically, thermally, and mechanically, render great potential practical and industrial applications in robust oil shielding, effective antifouling, highly energy efficient self‐cleaning, and solely gravity‐driven oil–water separations. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2752–2756, 2014