An elastic MOF/graphene aerogel with high photothermal efficiency for rapid removal of crude oil

Due to the frequent spill accidents during crude oil exploration and transport, to rapidly cleanup crude oil and eliminate the environmental pollution of oil spill is in high demand. In this work, a three-dimensional graphene aerogel (MEGA) with high elasticity, photothermal conversion capacity and adsorption capacity was prepared for rapid removal of crude oil. The results showed that the as-prepared MEGA exhibited a layered structure, the octahedral HKUST-1 nanoparticles and hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coatings were uniformly deposited on the surface. Such a hierarchical micro-nano porous structure not only improved the aerogel's hydrophobicity (water contact angle in air up to 152.7°), but also endowed it with strong oil adsorption capacity (41-118 times of its own weight). Especially, the MEGA showed excellent photothermal conversion capacity. Under light irradiation, its temperature raised to 80 ℃ from room temperature in 100 s. As a result, the adsorption for one drop of crude oil by MEGA was shortened from 5 h to 40 s, comparing with that in dark condition. In addition, the MEGA showed remarkable elasticity and mechanical stability, it could maintain more than 90% efficiency after 10 adsorption-compression cycles. This study suggests that the prepared MEGA has great potential for rapid removal of crude oil.