High-efficiency and all-weather crude oil spill remediation by an eco-friendly self-heating MXene-coated poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) porous monolith.

Frequent oil spill incidents have resulted in serious environmental pollution posing a great threat to human health and ecological system, thus developing new absorbents to efficiently remove and recycle high-viscosity crude oil is attracting more attention. We herein report an eco-friendly flexible poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT)-based monolith with MXene (Ti 3 C 2 T x) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coatings (P-MXene@PBAT monolith) by convenient and economical preparation method for self-heating driven fast crude oil cleanup. Due to unique three-dimensional interconnected pore structure and superior hydrophobicity, the P-MXene@PBAT showed high saturated absorption capacity and cyclic separation efficiency for multifarious low-viscosity oils. The P-MXene@PBAT was endowed with excellent photo/electro-thermal performance via wrapping MXene layer. The maximum surface temperature of monolith quickly reached up to 81 °C under 1.0 kW m−2 (1.0 sun) irradiation and 91 °C under 8 V voltage, respectively. Furthermore, the P-MXene@PBAT could self-heat crude oil to dramatically decrease oil viscosity and accelerate separation process. Specially, the P-MXene@PBAT was able to continuously separate crude oil from water with a simple pump-assisted absorption device (crude oil flux of 204 kg m−2 h−1), which adapted to varied working conditions by coupling solar heating and Joule heating. Such environmental-friendly all-weather absorbent design provides a sustainable strategy for efficient remediation of crude oil spill. [Display omitted] • Biodegradable porous P-MXene@PBAT monolith with all-day work mode was fabricated. • The as-prepared monolith possessed outstanding solar/electro-thermal performance. • The flexible monolith exhibited excellent recyclability for oil/water separation. • The self-heating monolith could continuously recover viscous crude oil from water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]