Peptide Nanowire Coated Jute as Hydrophobic Bio-Based Filter for Oil Water Separation

Solutions to oil-water separation have received a great deal of attention recently in an attempt to address the environmental damage of oil spills. However, many of these separation methods are materially expensive, environmentally hazardous, require elaborate fabrication, or rely on large amounts of energy to function. Herein we provide an effective, low-cost, and environmentally sustainable method for oil-water separation based on the hydrophobicity of self-assembling diphenylalanine nanowires grown on jute fabric. This modified jute fabric exhibits high levels of both hydrophobicity and oleophilicity due to the nanoscale surface roughness created by the growth of the self-assembling peptides on the jute fibers. The treated jute fabric also achieves consistent oil separation efficiencies of 98% via filtration and high levels of efficiency in a novel boat method of separation. Due to the high efficiency and low environmental impact of this method, we believe our diphenylalanine treated jute fabric has a promising potential in the field of oil-water separation.