A facile strategy to form three-dimensional network structure for mechanically robust superhydrophobic nanocoatings with enhanced transmittance

Rubing Xi; Yabin Wang; Xiaoyu Li; Xueji Zhang; Xin Du

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.049

A facile strategy to form three-dimensional network structure for mechanically robust superhydrophobic nanocoatings with enhanced transmittance

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Mar 15:563:42-53. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.049. Epub 2019 Dec 14.

Authors

Rubing Xi¹, Yabin Wang², Xiaoyu Li³, Xueji Zhang¹, Xin Du⁴

Affiliations

¹ Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, Department of Chemistry & Biological Engineering, University of Science & Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, PR China.
² Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Chemical Reaction Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yan'an University, Yan'an, Shaanxi 716000, PR China. Electronic address: ybw@yau.edu.cn.
³ National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academic of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. Electronic address: lixy@ipe.ac.cn.
⁴ Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, Department of Chemistry & Biological Engineering, University of Science & Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, PR China. Electronic address: duxin@ustb.edu.cn.

PMID: 31865047
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.049

Abstract

The mechanically robust nanocoatings with high transmittance and superhydrophobic self-cleaning are widely desired in daily-life and industry. However, to the state-of-art, it is still a great challenge to develop a simple and cost-effective approach to construct a multifunctional nanocoating due to structural confliction and technical limitation. In this work, we successfully fabricated such a multifunctional nanocoating through dip-coating a mixed suspension composed of acid-catalyzed silica sol (ACSS) as binder and hydrophobic silica nanoparticles (HSNs) as building block onto the glass substrate without any post-treatments. The introduction of ACSS highly crosslinked the HSNs and formed three-dimensional network structure, which enhanced the adhesion between HSNs and substrate, and thus significantly improved mechanical robustness of the nanocoatings. Moreover, it also retained enough porosity and surface roughness, thus achieving high transmittance and superhydrophobicity. The optimized nanocoating deposited on the glass slide had high transmittance of 96.17% and superhydrophobic self-cleaning property. It also showed highly mechanical robustness (3H pencil scratching test), enhanced adhesion (class of 4B for tape adhesion test), weatherable, and acidic (pH 5.0)/alkaline (pH 10.0) and thermal (250 °C) stability. The multifunctional nanocoating with the comprehensive performance has great potentials in practical applications.

Keywords: Antireflective nanocoatings; Balanced properties; Mechanical robustness; Superhydrophobic self-cleaning; Three-dimensional network structure.