Furfuryl alcohol modified melamine sponge for highly efficient oil spill clean-up and recovery

Hydrophobic foam-like materials are attracting significant interest as promising absorbents for oil spill clean-up and recovery from water bodies. Many hydrophobic modification methods for sponges have been reported so far. In this work, we reported a relatively simple, low-cost and environmentally friendly method of hydrophobic modification of commercial melamine sponge (MS) via simply soaking MS in furfuryl alcohol solution, followed by polymerization in acid solution. The results indicate that furfuryl alcohol not only reacts with MS but also polymerizes onto the surface of MS, leading to the hydrophobic nature of the modified MS. The modified MS shows excellent sorption capacities for various oils and organic solvents (75-160 g g −1 ) and can be utilized as an excellent oil absorbent or as an oil-collecting device with the assistance of a pump. Furfuryl alcohol was used to hydrophobically modify commercial melamine sponge and such a sponge shows excellent oil-water separation performance.