Selective adsorption of oil-water mixtures using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-graphene sponges

We report a porous and green three dimensional (3-D) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-graphene sponge with hydrophobic and oleophilic properties using the sugar templating method. The prepared sponge exhibited high adsorption performance for the removal of petroleum products, organic solvents and emulsified oil-water mixtures, especially under a continuous vacuum regime achieving an adsorption capacity of 4.5 L of hexane in 30 min. The proposed synthetic method is simple and economical for the scalable production of porous 3-D graphene sponges, which can be successfully used for efficient and cost-effective oil spill clean-ups and water purification for environmental applications.