Self-cleaning material based on superhydrophobic coatings through an environmentally friendly sol–gel method

Abstract

Recently, there has been increasing interest in developing artificial superhydrophobic surfaces, especially in the field of selfcleaning application. However, the poor robustness and high-cost preparation of these surfaces have always been some issues for their industrial development. Herein, we describe an environmentally friendly way to prepare stable, robust, and transparent superhydrophobic coatings through the deposition of a rough substructure of TiO 2 film followed by chemical modification using octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS), a fluorine-free organic silane. The as-prepared coatings exhibited a great superhydrophobic property and ultralow adhesion (with a static water contact angle of 158 ± 2°and sliding angle of 4 ± 1°). It was found that the superhydrophobic coatings can still maintain good performance after UV irradiation, chemical immersion, and physical abrasion. More importantly, the coated surfaces showed an excellent self-cleaning ability against dirt particles after rinsed with water droplets.

Eco-friendly method for construction of superhydrophobic graphene-based coating on copper substrate and its corrosion resistance performance

“…The SHP surface manufacturing principles are based on natural phenomena, including lotus, rose, and rice leaves 1 , 2 . Because of its relevance, such as drag reduction 3 , corrosion resistance 4 , self-cleaning capabilities 5 , water/oil separation 6 , and so on, SHP surfaces have recently sparked significant interest in academic research and prospective industrial applications. Two elements must be present to construct a superhydrophobic surface: rough surface texture with a distinct binary structure and surface chemistry modification with a low-free-energy coating 7 .…”

Study of nano-ZnO improvement of the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of modified-SiO2/PTFE superhydrophobic nanocomposite coatings by one-step spraying

“…43 The method of evaluating the superhydrophobic coating to maintain superhydrophobic properties has been used in many previous articles, and more stringent conditions are set on this basis to test the wear resistance of the coating. 23,24,44 Compared with other superhydrophobic coatings, 23,24 the superhydrophobic coating is worn by long distance and cross-cycling at higher pressure, and the hydrophobicity of the coating is not reduced. This superhydrophobic coating has good anti-wear properties.…”

“…Pratiwi et al prepared the superhydrophobic material nano-SiO 2 to build a rough surface and then used octadecyl trichlorosilane to reduce the surface energy, but the results show that this material does not have excellent mechanical wear resistance. 23 Li et al ingeniously combined TiO 2 and SiO 2 to obtain a rough surface with a multilayer structure and then used polydimethylsiloxane to reduce the surface energy of the superhydrophobic coating, but the water contact angle of the superhydrophobic coating decreased in the 50 cycles of the wear test. 24 The main reason for the low surface durability and fragility of superhydrophobic coatings is that the complex and rough micro–nano structures constructed on the surface are easily scratched and removed by external influences such as friction, impacts, and contact by a sharp material.…”

Synthesis of Porous N-doped TiO2 by Using Peroxo Sol-Gel Method for Photocatalytic Reduction of Cd(II)

“…The synthesis method was adopted and modified moderately from our previous work [49]. Briefly, 36 mL TiCl4 was slowly added into a 300 mL deionized water under vigorous magnetic stirring at temperature condition ~5 °C for 30 min.…”