Highly Efficient and Robust Oil/Water Separation Materials Based on Wire Mesh Coated by Reduced Graphene Oxide

We develop a simple approach for the preparation of oil/water separation material based on the reduced graphene oxide. First, the graphene oxide (GO) is coated on the commercially available wire mesh. The treatment of O₂ plasma is exploited to open the pores from the back side using the wire mesh as a ready-made mask, and the GO-coated mesh is subjected to the thermal annealing at 200 °C for 2 h to form stable superhydrophobic reduced graphene oxide (RGO) coating. The as-prepared mesh has excellent stability and reusability and the separation selectivity is above 98% for a variety of mixtures of oil and water. Meanwhile, the as-prepared RGO@mesh-300 shows stable and robust superhydrophobic properties including the stability of long-term storage, the resistance to high temperatures, high humidities, and mechanical abrasion. It is expected that this method of fabricating superhydrophobic materials can find more practical applications, especially in the oil/water separation.