Novel Fabrication of Solar Light-Heated Sponge through Polypyrrole Modification Method and Their Applications for Fast Cleanup of Viscous Oil Spills

Oil spills are becoming a global challenge since the viscous oil is difficult to dean up by the conventional absorbents because of their high viscosity. To overcome this dilemma, we report the novel fabrication of a polypyrrole (PPy)-polyethylene glycol (PEG)-polymerized octadecylsiloxane (PODS) coated sponge using versatile chemical polymerization and dip-coating methods, employing the photothermal property of PPy to heat the viscous oil. The benefits from photothermal composite lie in that they can reduce the viscosity of oil, increase the oil-diffusion coefficient, and speed up the oil-absorption rate. The formation of obtained products was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the wettability. The experiments indicate that the oil-absorption capacity was increased by 32.6%, and the time was reduced by 40.0% compared with that nonheated PPy-PEG-PODS-MS. More importantly, we presented a method of in situ pumping for oil recovery. The amount of oil recovery was increased 47.0%, and the oil recovery time was reduced by 70.0% compared with the method of squeezing.