A Robust Polybenzoxazine/SiO2 Fabric with Superhydrophobicity for High-Flux Oil/Water Separation

In this study, a fully biobased benzoxazine monomer (E-s) was combined with SiO2 nanoparticles to construct superhydrophobic/superoleophilic coatings on polyethylene terephthalate fabrics by spray coating and thermal curing. The resulting PE-s/SiO(2)0.2 fabric possessed special wettability with a water contact angle of 156.2 +/- 1.5 degrees and a sliding angle of 5.2 +/- 1.0 degrees, and it exhibited great adhesion strength under ultrasonication. Furthermore, PE-s/SiO(2)0.2 fabrics achieved ultrafast and efficient separation with average oil fluxes of around 45,000 L/m(2) h and separation efficiencies over 93% for several oil/water mixtures. In addition, PE-s/SiO(2)0.2 fabrics showed strong durability under several types of harsh treatment. Both their superwettability and separation performance were steadily preserved after immersion in acidic/alkaline solutions with pH values of 1-11 for 1 h, solvent immersion for 100 h, and 44 cycles of abrasion. Finally, a simple rinsing operation was explored to clean polluted PE-s/SiO(2)0.2 fabrics.