Facile Fabrication of Photothermal Superhydrophobic Copper Foam Using the Ultrafast Electroplating Approach

Photothermal superhydrophobic coatings are ideal materials for high-viscosity crude oil adsorption or treatment. However, how to quickly prepare large-scale photothermal superhydrophobic coatings for real application is still a challenge. Here, we report that photothermal superhydrophobic copper foam with a water contact angle of 159.9° can be quickly prepared using a low-cost and easy-to-manipulate electroplating method within only 5 min, presenting a facile and fast approach to fabricate large-scale photothermal superhydrophobic materials. The prepared superhydrophobic copper foam showed good physical and chemical stability. Importantly, the superhydrophobic copper foam had good oil spill adsorption characteristics, and the adsorption capacity and efficiency for n-hexane (<ρ_water) reached 6.48 g/g and 99%, respectively. The adsorption capacity and efficiency for dichloromethane (>ρ_water) reached 9.42 g/g and 99.3%, respectively. In addition, the superhydrophobic copper foam possessed a good photothermal property, enabling it with the ability of crude oil adsorption, and each gram of copper foam could adsorb 11.326 g of crude oil. The excellent performance of this photothermal superhydrophobic copper foam prepared by the ultrafast electroplating approach should play a great role in the treatment of marine crude oil leakage pollution.