Superhydrophobic and superoleophilic modified EPDM foam rubber fabricated by a facile approach for oil/water separation

Due to the severe impacts on the ecological environment and human life caused by oil leakage and organic solvent contamination of water bodies, a splendid absorption material is strongly demanded to remove the organic contaminants. In this research, we fabricated the superhydrophobic and superoleophilic absorption material of the ethylene-propylene diene monomer (EPDM) foam rubber modified with methyltrichlorosilane (MTCS) through a facile two-step approach including chemical coarsing and sol-gel process. The resultant foam rubber displayed favorable oil/water selectivity and strong repellence to water with contact angel of up to 159.3°. The prepared material displayed high absorption capacity for oils with a wider range of viscosity (from 0.3 to 400 mPa·s) and high oil/water separation efficiency of nearly 99.9%. More importantly, the as-obtained foam rubber exhibited an outstanding reusability and durability to both organic solvent and at least 100 cycles of mechanical compression, demonstrating its promising potential to serve as an absorbent in practical oil/water separation.