The oil absorption capacity of polypropylene porous absorbents fabricated through iPP/EVA in situ microfibrillar composites: effect of fibrillar morphology

The development of methods to prepare absorption materials for the cleanup of large area of oil spill from water has been attracting much attention. In this work, isotactic polypropylene (iPP) porous absorbents consisting of microfibrils-stacked three-dimensional (3D) interconnected microchannels were prepared by multistage stretching extrusion technology and solvent leaching method. The effect of microfibrillar morphology tailored by weight ratio on the oil absorption ability of iPP porous absorbents was investigated. The results shown that the surface wettability, porosity and oil absorption capacity of porous absorbents were remarkably dependent on the morphology of iPP fibrils. Compared with long iPP microfibrils, iPP porous absorbents with ellipsoids-stacking morphology exhibited the highest porosity (75.9%) and a typically superhydrophobic and superolephilic surface, leading to the subsequent excellent oil absorption capacity up to 720% toward silicone oil. Accordingly, this work provided a promising strategy for fabricating high-performance porous absorbents via conventional polymer molding method, which have great potential in the cleanup of large-scale oil spills.