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

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 water‐induced 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. A facile template‐free thermally impacted water‐induced phase separation approach for the fabrication of skin‐free thermoplastic polyurethane foam with a water contact angle of 147° and excellent compressibility (>1000 cycles) is proposed. Moreover, the used foams can be recycled and reused to form refresh foams without sacrificing their high performance.