Facile Thermally Impacted Water-Induced Phase Separation Approach for the Fabrication of Skin-Free Thermoplastic Polyurethane Foam and Its Recyclable Counterpart for Oil–Water Separation

摘要

Developing a facile large-scale strategy to fabricate polymer foams with excellent wettability and recycling its counterpart for oil–water separation is in urgent demand. Here, a facile template-free thermally impacted waterinduced phase separation approach for the fabrication of skin-free thermoplastic polyurethane foam with a water contact angle of 147°, porosity more than 90%, density less than 14 mg cm~(?3), and excellent compressibility (>1000 cycles) is proposed. The foams show high efficiency of oil recovery (>98%) during the squeezing and pumping oil–water separation test. Moreover, the used foams could be recycled and reused to form refresh foams without sacrificing their high performance, which makes this method a promising prospect for environmental applications.