Overview of rough surface construction technology for cotton fabrics used in oil/water separation

The discharge of waste organic solvents, various oil/water mixtures and the frequent infiltration of oil into water bodies have created significant threats to the ecological environment. As a result, the separation and recovery of oil/water mixtures have been increasingly investigated by scholars. Many researchers have developed numerous separation materials with excellent separation efficiency and high separation flux, including filter materials, adsorption materials and smart materials with switchable wettability. Among them, natural cotton fabric has been widely studied as a separation material substrate due to its three-dimensional surface structure, porosity, excellent fiber adsorption capacity, recyclability, low cost, and biodegradability. As an oil/water separation material, it is essential for the substrate surface to have a micro–nano structure. Researchers typically use various methods to modify the surface of cotton fabrics with various kinds of micro–nano particles, which create a certain roughness on the fabric surface. These methods include dip-coating, spray-coating, and grafting reactions, followed by further modifications to obtain separation materials for various purposes. In this work, we review the technology of creating rough textures on the surface of cotton fabrics for oil/water separation.