J Appl Phys 2002, 92:1604.CrossRef Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions NP designed the experiment, collected experimental results, and involved in analysis and interpretation of data. He was the person in charge of Selleck SB273005 drafting this manuscript. KV created the concept of using femtosecond laser for nanotips synthesis. He has made substantial contributions to the acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data. BT made substantial contributions to the acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data. She has been involved in drafting the manuscript and revising it critically for important selleck chemical intellectual content and has given final approval of the version to be published. All authors read and approved 4SC-202 ic50 the final manuscript.”
“Background

With the development of economy and society, the oil pollution has become a worldwide challenge due to its serious threat to people’s livelihoods and the ecological environment [1–4]. Therefore, the removal of oil from water is becoming imperative. Many methods were employed to solve the oil pollution, such as chemical dispersant [5], in situ burning [6], and oil-absorbing materials [7–9]. However, these methods usually have some drawbacks, including low separation efficiency, poor recyclability, and high operation costs. In order to overcome these problems, the solid surfaces with both superoleophilicity and superhydrophobicity

have incited broad attention due to the application in the separation of oil and water [10]. The wettability of the solid surface is a very important property, and it can be regulated by surface free energy and surface structure [11–15]. The superhydrophobic surfaces were usually achieved by modifying rough surfaces with low-surface energy materials [16]. The filtration of water and oil has been achieved using the stainless steel mesh modified through polytetrafluoroethylene [10]. Wang et al. [17] have fabricated successfully the copper filter which can be used in the filtration of water and oil by grafting hexadecanethiol. However, the organic matters which were used oxyclozanide in chemical modification are usually expensive and harmful. In addition, they were easily removed from the surface due to their solubility in oil. In this paper, ordered ZnO nanorod arrays have been fabricated successfully on the stainless steel mesh by a simple chemical vapor deposition method. The superhydrophobic and superoleophilic mesh could separate water from oil effectively, and its wettability kept stable even if it was soaked in the corrosive solutions for 1 h. The coated mesh will have a potential application in oil spill cleanups. Methods The ZnO nanorod arrays which were coated on the surface of the stainless steel mesh were synthesized via a chemical vapor deposition process.