Superhydrophobic Polydimethylsiloxane@Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Membrane for Effective Water-in-Oil Emulsions Separation and Quick Deicing

With increasing environmental pollution, superhydrophobic materials for effectively separating oil/water mixtures especially emulsions have attracted considerable interest. Herein, we propose a facile vacuum-filtration approach to fabricating flexible superhydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane@multiwalled carbon nanotubes (PDMS@MWCNTs) membrane. The fabricated membrane had outstanding superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 167° and a water sliding angle of 2.9°, self-cleaning ability, and good resistances to cold, hot, strong acid, alkali, and abrasion. Owing to the connected nanoscale pores constructed by the overlapped MWCNTs, the membrane was successfully applied to separate various water-in-oil emulsions and exhibited excellent reusability. Additionally, taking advantage of electrical conductivity and the electrothermal conversion effect, the PDMS@MWCNTs membrane could also be utilized for quick deicing at a low voltage. Our findings provided a new strategy to fabricate functional superhydrophobic materials for various potential applications.