Congratulations to Chao Zhang and Ming-bang Wu for their recent publication on J. Mater. Chem. A

Herein, we report solar-driven self-heating hydrophobic/oleophilic sponges for the first time for fast adsorption of crude oil from water surfaces. The self-heating function benefits from the photothermal conversion effect of the polydopamine (PDA) coating, enabling the temperature of the sponges to quickly increase to in situ decrease the viscosity of crude oil. The adsorption capacity of the self-heating sponges can reach up to 1.29 ± 0.37 × 106 g m−3, which is nearly 11 times higher than that of the sponges without the self-heating function (1.13 ± 0.11 × 105 g m−3). Furthermore, the integration of the self-heating sponges with a peristaltic pump creates a self-heating vacuum cleaner to realize continuous clean-up or collection of crude oil from water surfaces.

DOI: 10.1039/c8ta02336k