Superhydrophobic wire-cotton woven porous material with excellent durability for emulsion separation.

• Metal wire and cotton fibers are combined through ingenious weaving methods. • The combination of macroscopic and microscopic fibers makes SWCM have excellent durability and efficient emulsion separation performance. • For the first time, an emulsion separation simulation model has been established via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to understand the SWCM emulsion separation mechanism. • The separation efficiency of the SWCM is above 99.98% only by gravity drive. Superhydrophobic materials have been extensively investigated for their ability to separate oil/water mixtures, but their fragile durability has limited further development in this field. In this study, a durable superhydrophobic wire-cotton-based material (SWCM) was prepared by weaving metal wire and cotton fiber and modifying it with a mixed poly(vinyl phenol) (PVPh)/1,3-phenylene bisoxazoline (PBO) solution, which exhibits both macro-frame and micro-aperture. The SWCM demonstrates remarkable separation efficiency (greater than99.98 %) for a variety of water-in-oil emulsions using only gravity drive. More importantly, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted to investigate the separation mechanism of SWCM, revealing dynamic trajectory and volume changes of water droplets in real-time. Moreover, the micro-aperture, protected by the macro-frame, can withstand hundreds of impacts and abrasions and still maintain reliable separation efficiency. Under the encapsulation of micro-apertures, the macro-frame exhibits excellent corrosion resistance and can maintain stable superhydrophobicity even after long-term immersion in different harsh solutions. Due to its excellent durability, the SWCM can maintain a long service life in oil–water separation in complex environments. Therefore, the presented SWCM has great potential in the development of durable and efficient materials for emulsion separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]