Nowadays

oil spills have led to a serious environmental crisis of the world. To deal with this problem

inspired from super-hydrophobic lotus leaf

this study fabricated super-hydrophobic and super-lipophilic functionalized graphene oxide/polyurethane (FGP) sponge by a simple and inexpensive dip coating method. The resulting FGP sponge was characterized by infrared spectroscopy

X-ray diffraction

scanning electron microscopy and water contact angle. The results expressed that FGP sponge exhibited a similar surface structure to that of a lotus leaf

and possessed the super-hydrophobic characteristic with the water contact angle (WAC) of 152° ±1°. The absorption capacity and reusability were also investigated. It can be seen that

the FGP sponge can remove a wide range of oils and organic solvents from water with good absorption capacities (up to 35 times of its own mass). Significantly

after 10 cycles the absorption capacity of the oils and organic solvents was higher than 90% for the reused FGP sponge

demonstrating the good reusability of the FGP sponge. Therefore

this study probably provided a simple way to remove the pollutions of oil spills and toxic organism from water.