Super pressure-resistant superhydrophobic fabrics with real self-cleaning performance

Ning Tian; Kai Chen; Hui Yu; Jinfei Wei; Junping Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104494

Super pressure-resistant superhydrophobic fabrics with real self-cleaning performance

iScience. 2022 May 30;25(6):104494. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104494. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Ning Tian^{1

2}, Kai Chen^{1

2}, Hui Yu^{1

2}, Jinfei Wei¹, Junping Zhang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Center of Eco-material and Green Chemistry, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, PR China.
² Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.

Abstract

Detergents are extensively used for laundry, causing significant negative impacts on water bodies, plants and animals. Superhydrophobic fabrics are promising to reduce detergent consumption but suffer from low pressure resistance. Here, we report super pressure-resistant superhydrophobic fabrics prepared using polysiloxane modified SiO₂ nanoparticles with epoxy groups. The fabrics show real self-cleaning performance, essentially different from the conventional self-cleaning property of solid particles loosely placed on superhydrophobic surfaces. The contaminated fabrics by various stains can be completely cleaned by home machine laundering without using any detergent whereas the traditional superhydrophobic fabrics cannot. This is owing to excellent abrasion and washing durability, low liquid adhesion force, superior pressure-resistance and vapor-resistance of the fabrics, originating from the low surface energy and dense micro-/nanostructure. Moreover, the superhydrophobic fabrics can be scaled up using the conventional fabric finishing line with low cost. The superhydrophobic fabrics will help significantly reduce the global detergent consumption.

Keywords: Applied sciences; Materials science.