Condensed solute droplets templated honeycomb pattern on polymer films

Zhenghui Wang; Wei Cheng; Jun Ma; Panpan Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.038

Condensed solute droplets templated honeycomb pattern on polymer films

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2014 Dec 15:436:16-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.038. Epub 2014 Sep 3.

Authors

Zhenghui Wang¹, Wei Cheng¹, Jun Ma², Panpan Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China; National Engineering Research Center of Urban Water Resources, Harbin 150090, China.
² School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China; National Engineering Research Center of Urban Water Resources, Harbin 150090, China. Electronic address: majun@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 25259756
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.08.038

Abstract

A method to generate honeycomb pattern on polymer films is demonstrated. Briefly, a polymer solution in a volatile solvent containing a nonvolatile liquid solute is cast into a thin layer, with the fast evaporation of the volatile solvent, the liquid solute is enriched at the top surface of the layer. The enriched liquid solute condenses into uniform droplets after reaching its saturation state, meanwhile, the polymer precipitates at the interface of the droplets. With this method, we prepared the honeycomb-patterned polysulfone, polystyrene, and polyvinylidene fluoride films. This method provides a new approach to manipulate the surface geometry of polymer films.

Keywords: Breath figure; Condensation; Droplet; Emulsion; Honeycomb pattern; Polystyrene; Polysulfone; Polyvinylidene fluoride; Solvent evaporation; Template.