A versatile hydrogel platform for oil/water separation, dye adsorption, and wastewater purification

The development of a versatile platform that can separate oil/water mixture, remove dye from water, and purify wastewater is extremely desirable, yet still hard to realize. Herein, to address this challenge, a composite hydrogel was produced by freezing–thawing treatment using chitosan, polyvinyl alcohol, and carbon black as the raw materials. The obtained hydrogel displayed both slippery oil-repellency and water-affinity in air, underwater, when submerged in oil, and exploiting this special wettability, the hydrogel coated mesh can be used to separate oil/water mixtures efficiently. After 25 oil–water separation cycles, the hydrogel-coated filter still had a separation efficiency of over 98%. With its superhydrophilicity and active functional groups, the resulting hydrogel was able to absorb dye molecules dissolved in water effectively. Due to the photothermal effect of carbon black, the local temperature of the hydrogel was increasing quickly under sunlight illustration, which allowed it to be an advanced platform for daily wastewater purification through solar distillation. Graphical abstract A versatile hydrogel platform for oil–water separation, dye adsorption, and domestic wastewater purification was developed.