Superhydrophobic and Oleophilic Open-Cell Foams from Fibrillar Blends of Polypropylene and Polytetrafluoroethylene
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Effective removal of oils from water is of global significance for environmental protection. In this study, we investigate the hydrophobicity and oleophilicity of open-cell polymer foams prepared in a continuous and scalable extrusion process. The material used to prepare the open-cell foams is a fibrillar blend of polypropylene (PP) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the morphology of the PP/PTFE fibrillar blend reveal that the PTFE has a fibrillar morphology in the PP matrix. SEM micrograph of the extruded foam shows the formation of an interconnected open-cell structure. Using nitrogen pycnometry, the open-cell content is estimated to be 97.7%. A typical bulk density of the open-cell foam is measured to be about 0.07 g cm(-3) corresponding to a void fraction of 92%. Thus, a large three-dimensional space is made available for oil storage. A drop of water on the cross-section of the extruded open-cell foam forms a contact angle of 160° suggesting that the open-cell foam exhibits superhydrophobicity. The open-cell foam can selectively absorb various petroleum products, such as octane, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, light crude oil, and heavy crude oil from water and the uptake capacities range from about 5 to 24 g g(-1). The uptake kinetics can be enhanced by exposing the open-cell foam to high intensity ultrasound which increases the surface porosity of the thin, impervious, foam "skin" layer. The reusability of the foam can be improved by using a matrix polymer which demonstrates superior elastic properties and prevents the foams from undergoing a large permanent deformation upon compression to "squeeze out" the oil. For example, when the PP homopolymer matrix is replaced with a PP random copolymer, the permanent deformation for 10 compressive cycles is reduced from about 30% to 10%. To the best of our knowledge, these PP-based open-cell foams outperform PP-based absorbents conventionally used for oil-spill cleanup applications such as nonwoven PP fibers or melt-blown PP pads.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".