A facile method to fabricate superoleophilic and hydrophobic polyurethane foam for oil–water separation

• Titanate nanotubes and chitosan were successfully loaded on the FPUF by layer by layer self-assembly method.
• The modified foam could be used to separate oil from water.
• The FPUF-3 could sustain high absorption capacity after 50 absorption cycles.

A facile and novel method to fabricate superoleophilic and hydrophobic flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) is presented in this work. The modified FPUF was prepared by utilizing positively charged chitosan and negatively charged titanate nanotubes together with subsequent modification of dodecyl mercaptan. The roughness of the foam surface improved significantly by increasing the bilayers number of the coating. The modified FPUF could rapidly and selectively absorb various kinds of oils up to 29 times of its weight, and the absorbed oils could be collected by a simple squeezing process. Furthermore, after 50 absorption cycles, the modified FPUF could still maintain its high absorption capacity.