COMPOSITES & NANOCOMPOSITES Development of superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, and flame-resistant DLC/TiO 2 melamine sponge for application in oil–water separation Roberta G. Toro 1, * , Pietro Calandra 1 , Fulvio Federici 1 , Tilde de Caro 1 , Alessio Mezzi 1 , Barbara Cortese 2 , Anna Lucia Pellegrino 3 , Graziella Malandrino 3 , and Daniela Caschera 1 1 CNR-ISMN, Area della Ricerca Roma 1, Via Salaria km 29,300, 00015 Monterotondo Scalo, Rome, Italy 2 Department of Physics, CNR-Nanotec, Istituto di Nanotecnologia, University Sapienza, P.Le A. Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy 3 Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università di Catania and INSTM UdR di Catania, V.le A. Doria 6, 95125 Catania, Italy Received: 9 September 2019 Accepted: 12 November 2019 Published online: 25 November 2019 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 ABSTRACT Increasing awareness of environmental concerns has strongly pushed the sci- entific community towards the search for new solutions for efficient removal of oils and organic solvents from water. Here, we report the preparation of mul- tifunctional TiO 2 -coated melamine-formaldehyde (MF) sponges as absorbent material for oils and organic solvents in water. TiO 2 -coated MF sponges were fabricated through an environmentally friendly approach, consisting in a simple immersion of the sponge into an oleic acid-capped TiO 2 nanoparticles disper- sion. The adhesion of TiOle coating to the sponge was then improved by the deposition of a low surface energy diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin layer. Our results highlighted that the modified MF sponges possess superhydrophobic and oleophilic behaviour, inertness to corrosive environment, good durability and reusability. Furthermore, the superhydrophobic DLC/TiO 2 @sponges showed (1) novel self-cleaning properties towards an absorbed commercial organic dye (IR-270BKA, chosen as representative) under visible light irradia- tion and (2) enhanced flame-retardant behaviour respect to the pristine MF sponge. These findings point out an important added value of DLC/TiOle@- sponges making them promising candidates for wastewater treatments. Introduction Recently, water pollution is becoming an ever- growing serious environmental problem. In particu- lar, the increasing pollution from industrial organic oils and solvents has rapidly become a common worldwide concern. To face this problem, the search of more efficient and eco-friendly solutions to reme- diate to accidental oil spills is one of the actions taken in the last years [1]. Address correspondence to E-mail: robertagrazia.toro@cnr.it https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-04211-2 J Mater Sci (2020) 55:2846–2859 Composites & nanocomposites