Hydrophilic polydimethylsiloxane-based sponges for dewatering applications.

• Hydrophilic sponges are made from standard precursors in a simple 4-step process. • Our sponges have extraordinary high water absorbing capacity of 1600%. • Hydrophilic sponges may find use as dewatering agents for many nonpolar liquids. Separation of water from non-polar liquid mixtures (dewatering) is a challenging, yet an important problem in such fields as petroleum industry and power coolants. We describe a method of fabrication and properties of a high-capacity hydrophilic sponge based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The sponge is obtained by addition of 1-octanol and incorporating zinc chloride powder template in the precursor PDMS liquid followed by heat curing at 115 °C with subsequent elution of the template. The produced PDMS sponges have water absorbing capacity reaching approx. 1600%, which is two times higher than typically known for dewatering sorbents. Those high-capacity sponges may find use as dewatering agents for oils, hydrocarbons and other nonpolar liquids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]