Highly Hydrophobic Foams from Pickering High Internal Phase Emulsions: Triton X-100 Modified Mycobacteria as Stabilizers for Efficient Oil Adsorption

Highly Hydrophobic and porous foams for efficient oil spill remediation were developed using Pickering high internal phase emulsions (HIPE) strategy, stabilized by surfactant-modified <i>Mycobacterium</i> sp. WY10 cells. The interfacial wettability of WY10 cells was systematically tuned with Triton X-100 (TX100), achieving a maximum under-oil contact angle (CA) of approximately 170.3° at 5 g/L TX100. These hydrophobically enhanced cells successfully stabilized W/O Pickering HIPEs, which were subsequently polymerized. The resulting foams exhibited an ultralight density (0.2761 g/cm³), strong macroscopic hydrophobicity (Water contact angle, WCA ∼135.56°), and effective selective oil absorption, contrasting with the hydrophilic foams derived from unmodified cells. The study revealed that TX100 concentration critically governs the foam's hierarchical porosity and, consequently, its oil uptake performance. While the WY10/TX100-0.05 foam possessed the highest specific surface area (2.313 m²/g), the optimized WY10/TX100-5 foam demonstrated a more favorable porous architecture, achieving a notable paraffin oil adsorption capacity of 2.8 g/g. This optimized foam also showed good reusability, retaining significant capacity after multiple adsorption-desorption cycles. This work establishes the modification of mycobacterial stabilizers as a key strategy to control the properties of biobased HIPE foams, offering a promising approach for treating oil spills.