Honeycomb structures obtained with breath figures self-assembly allow water/oil separation

We report the development of a method of the breath figures self-assembly, allowing manufacturing of micro-scaled porous hydrophobic/oleophilic polymer surfaces. The stainless steel gauzes were used as carrying frameworks for polymer honeycomb reliefs resulting from the breath figures self-assembly. Two very different kinds of polymer reliefs arose from non-woven large aperture and micro-scaled woven gauzes. Both of them are hydrophobic and oleophilic, permeable for oils and impermeable for water. The micro-scaled woven gauzes promoted formation of reliefs manifesting the "rose petal effect", i.e. high apparent contact angles accompanied with the high contact angle hysteresis. This kind of reliefs turned out to be extremely efficient for water/oil separation. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.