The team of Professor Guo Xingpeng of Guangzhou University: Building a superhydrophobic lignocellulosic material for oil-water separation based on addition reaction

Frequent oil spills and industrial oily wastewater discharge have caused serious ecological pollution and economic losses

Recently, the team of Professor Guo Xingpeng of Guangzhou University and the team of associate researcher Wang Bin of South China University of Technology have successfully constructed a micro-nano spherical structure on the surface of the wood fiber through the condensation of formaldehyde and melamine using wood fibers as raw materials, and then added with isothiocyanate compounds.

Figure 1 The chemical reaction path of formaldehyde, melamine and isothiocyanate on the surface of wood fiber superhydrophobic modification

The microscopic morphology test shows that the original wood fiber surface is relatively smooth, and wrinkles on the fiber surface can be observed, while the surface of the wood fiber modified with the melamine resin superhydrophobic coating contains a large number of micro-nano spherical structures.

Figure 2 Characterization of the surface micro-morphology of the material

After being hydrophobically modified by isothiocyanate, the wood fiber exhibits lower water droplet adhesion and super lipophilicity

Figure 3 Antifouling performance test of superhydrophobic wood fiber

At the same time, the super-hydrophobic modified wood fiber exhibits super-lipophilic properties, which can absorb the upper oil phase, lower oil phase and slick oil, and has strong adsorption capacity for petroleum ether, engine oil, methylene chloride, etc.

Figure 4 High-efficiency adsorption and filtration separation of various oil pollution

Summarize

Professor Guo Xingpeng’s team prepared a super-hydrophobic/super-lipophilic oil-water separation material based on the surface modification of wood fibers.

Essay topic:

Melamine resin-coated lignocellulose fibers with robust superhydrophobicity for highly effective oil/water separation

Kang Lei, Shi Lanjie, Zeng Qiao, Liao Bokai*, Wang Bin*, Guo Xingpeng