Superhydrophobicity and Durability in Recyclable Polymers Coating

Abstract

Highly hydrophobic and superhydrophobic materials obtained from recycled polymers represent an interesting challenge to recycle and reuse advanced performance materials after their first life. In this article, we present a simple and low-cost method to fabricate a superhydrophobic surface by employing polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) powder in polystyrene (PS) dispersion. With respect to the literature, the superhydrophobic surface (SHS) was prepared by utilizing a spray- coating technique at room temperature, a glass substrate without any further modification or thermal treatment, and which can be applied onto a large area and on to any type of material with some degree of fine control over the wettability properties. The prepared surface showed superhydrophobic behavior with a water contact angle (CA) of 170°; furthermore, the coating was characterized with different techniques, such as a 3D confocal profilometer, to measure the average roughness of the coating, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to characterize the surface morphology. In addition, the durability of SH coating was investigated by a long-water impact test (raining test), thermal treatment at high temperature, an abrasion test, and in acidic and alkaline environments. The present study may suggest an easy and scalable method to produce SHS PS/PTFE films that may find implementation in various fields.

Sustainable Coatings on Metallic Alloys as a Nowadays Challenge

“…Therefore, researchers moved towards non-fluorinated compounds that can manifest the same characteristics. These surfaces can be fabricated through multiple sustainable methods, such as spray coating, spin coating, dip coating, grafting method and vapor deposition method [39,40].…”

Sinergia Científica: Integrando las Ciencias desde una Perspectiva Multidisciplinaria

“…En cuanto a las implicaciones prácticas de esta investigación, los beneficios potenciales son múltiples. Los materiales compuestos desarrollados en este estudio muestran ser una opción viable para sustituir al hormigón en el revestimiento de cunetas (Cirisano & Ferrari, 2021;Getor et al, 2020;Lewandowski & Skórczewska, 2022). Esto no solo contribuiría a la reducción de residuos plásticos y a la sostenibilidad ambiental, sino que también ofrecería ventajas en términos de durabilidad y costos en proyectos de infraestructuras viales (Brasileiro et al, 2019;Cirisano & Ferrari, 2021;Ma et al, 2022;Nizamuddin et al, 2021;Tulashie et al, 2022).…”

Reduction of polystyrene/polyurethane plastic wastes from the environment into binders for water-resistant emulsion paints

“…Composite technology has been used to advance the potential of conventional materials and their structural and engineering applications [ 7 , 8 ]. Different methods have been used in the preparation of polymer-polymer composites, and the products have exhibited desired characteristics based on compatibility and unique morphologies due to ᴨ-ᴨ and other molecular interactions [ 17 , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] ].…”

“…Godinho et al [ 23 ] recycled PU materials via depolymerization in an acidolysis reaction using dicarboxylic acid, and the polyol-rich product was further reacted with isocyanate to produce the rPU coating resin. A superhydrophobic coating was formulated by dispersing polytetrafluoroethylene powder in a solution of rPS [ 29 ]. Güçlü [ 31 ], prepared water-reducible alkyd resins by using the water-soluble and insoluble fractions of the depolymerization product obtained after simultaneous glycolysis and hydrolysis of PET waste.…”