In this paper, the superhydrophobic coating was prepared by spraying the composites of fluorocarbon emulsion and nanosized silica on the conductive glass sheet for the triboelectric energy harvesting from water droplets. The low surface energy of fluorine in the fluorocarbon emulsion and nanosilica renders the coating with the static contact angle and sliding angle of 156.2° and 6.74°, respectively. The conductive aluminum tape was attached on the surface of the superhydrophobic coating to complete the circuit constituted with the aluminum electrode, charged superhydrophobic coating, and the conductive glass sheet. During the contact electrification with the bouncing water droplet, the superhydrophobic coating with the aluminum electrode can obtain the electric energy with an open-circuit voltage of 20 V and short-circuit current of 4.5 μA, respectively. While the control device only produced an open-circuit voltage of 0.2 V. The generated power by one drop was enough to light up 16 commercial LEDs. Results demonstrate that the fluorocarbon/silica composite superhydrophobic coating is potentially a strong candidate for scavenging energy in sliding mode from raindrops.

In this paper, the pollution flashover performance of a superhydrophobic surface with different coating strategies are studied. The results show that a superhydrophobic coating is effective in preventing pollution flashover under high voltage. The superhydrophobic coatings show increased pollution flashover voltage when compared to room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber and to an uncoated glass substrate. A novel suppression mechanism of the superhydrophobic coating is proposed which is driven by the electrostatic force produced by the applied voltage. The coalesced slippery slurry droplets and the expanded dry area on the superhydrophobic surface contributes to increased flashover voltage on the superhydrophobic surface. The superhydrophobic coating promises to be a prospective application in anti-pollution performance of insulators.

In this research, the mesomorphic properties, thermal conductivity, and dielectric strength of a liquid-crystalline epoxy resin with hybrids of cellulose nanofiber and boron nitride nanosheet are studied. The thermal conductivity of LCER with hybrid fillers at a loading of 30 wt% demonstrated approximately 387% of that of the neat LCER and 246% of that of the nanocomposites with single BNNS fillers. The hybrid nanocomposite also demonstrates comparable dielectric strength and greater water contact angles in contrast to nanocomposites with single BNNS fillers. Furthermore, the nanocomposites with hybrid fillers show greater resistance to electrical erosion during the breakdown testing due to the greater thermal conductivity induced by enhanced filler dispersion.

Epoxy resin is widely used due to its electrical insulation performances, but low elongation defects at the break, low thermal conductivity, and high brittleness limit its application scenarios. In this paper, the mesogen is utilized to improve the thermal conductivity and mechanical toughness of the traditional epoxy resin. Both the mechanical performances, including the impact strength, tensile strength, the bending strength, and the thermal behaviors, including the thermal conductivity, are investigated. Results show that with the biphenyl liquid crystal epoxy resin(BLCER) content of 10%, the impacting strength, tensile strength, and bending strength are increased by 71%, 21%, and 11%, respectively. The thermal conductivity of the composites increases to 2.26 times that of pure epoxy resin. Both the enhanced mechanical and thermal performance of the epoxy resin by the mesogen incorporation are further investigated. It is indicated that the mesogen in the Biphenyl Liquid Crystal Epoxy Resin significantly improve both the mechanical toughness and thermal conductivity of the epoxy resin by the formation of the micro-crack behavior and the thermal conductive networks, respectively. With the aids of the mesogen, the improved variety of properties in epoxy resin without reducing its original performance is attractive in the industry application with great demand in the balance of the comprehensive performances.INDEX TERMS Mesogen, epoxy resin, toughness, thermal conductivity.

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