Recycling of PE glove waste as highly valuable products for efficient separation of oil-based contaminants from water

Abstract

In this study, we prepared a highly efficient PE coated mesh by simply using recycled PE gloves as raw materials. This mesh showed high separation efficiency and large flux when separating water from different types of oil/water mixtures. It also exhibited excellent stability and maintained high hydrophobicity and super-oleophilicity properties after being reused at least thirty times. In view of the advantages of this as-prepared mesh, it will contribute to reduce white pollution from used PE materials and will have wide applications in wastewater treatment utilizing oil/water separation.