Hydrophobic polycarbonate monolith with mesoporous nest-like structure: an effective oil sorbent.

Polycarbonate (PC) monolith with three-dimensional interconnected mesoporous nest-like structure was first fabricated by thermally impacted nonsolvent-induced phase separation (TINIPS) method. Owing to continuously interlaced nanofibrous skeleton, the monolith possessed a high specific surface area of 95.02 m 2 /g. This novel structure also contributed to the improvement of hydrophobicity so that a high water contact angle of 143.9° was obtained. Furthermore, the as-prepared monolith could effectively adsorb various types of oils. Based on such a unique structure as well as these outstanding properties, the PC monolith will play a big role in the field of oil sorbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]