A single-sided superhydrophobic fluorinated silica/poly(ether sulfone) (fSiO(2)/PES) membrane for SO2 absorption was prepared by depositing fluorinated silica particles on the top surface of a PES membrane via vacuum-filtration. The effect of the filtration volume of hydrophobic SiO2 sol on the top surface of the PES membrane was studied. The single-sided superhydrophobic fSiO(2)/PES membrane along with an unmodified PES membrane was characterized by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), water contact angle (WCA) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). The existence of the hydrophobic SiO2 inorganic layer on the top surface of the PES membrane, applied through silane chemical reactions after vacuum-filtration and heat treatment, was confirmed by the above analyses. The addition of the fSiO(2) inorganic layer not only increased the surface roughness but also reduced the surface free energy, due to hydrophobic 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (PFDTES). The experimental results showed that the presence of the fSiO(2) micro-nano architecture contributed greatly to the hydrophobicity of the single-sided superhydrophobic fSiO(2)/PES membrane, which resulted in a WCA of 155.2 +/- 0.5 degrees. Compared with the PES membrane, the single-sided superhydrophobic PES membrane exhibited weaker mechanical properties, which could be attributable to the inherent brittleness of inorganic materials. The SO2 removal efficiency of the single-sided superhydrophobic fSiO(2)/PES membrane (7.78E-4 mol/m(2)s) was better than that of the PES membrane, which indicated that the single-sided superhydrophobic fSiO(2)/PES membrane is suitable for SO2 absorption in a gas-liquid membrane contactor.