A Facile Route to Fabricate Superhydrophobic Cu2O Surface for Efficient Oil–Water Separation

Abstract

The mixture of insoluble organics and water seriously affects human health and environmental safety. Therefore, it is important to develop an efficient material to remove oil from water. In this work, we report a superhydrophobic Cu2O mesh that can effectively separate oil and water. The superhydrophobic Cu2O surface was fabricated by a facile chemical reaction between copper mesh and hydrogen peroxide solution without any low surface reagents treatment. With the advantages of simple operation, short reaction time, and low cost, the as-synthesized superhydrophobic Cu2O mesh has excellent oil–water selectivity for many insoluble organic solvents. In addition, it could be reused for oil–water separation with a high separation ability of above 95%, which demonstrated excellent durability and reusability. We expect that this fabrication technique will have great application prospects in the application of oil–water separation.