The group of JIN Jian at CAS Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics has developed a hydrogel material composed of polyacrylic acid grafted polyvinylidene fluoride (PAA-g-PVDF) which shows water oleophobic angle of > 165 ° and almost zero oil adhesion. With this material, a high viscosity crude oil (21 mPa s-1) was separated from water only by gravity, the separated water flux reached 50000 L m-2 h-1, and oil content in water was as low as 0.5 ppm, while the collected crude oil purity was 98.7 %.
CAS news release, May 18, 2016