Roll-to-roll fabrication of superhydrophobic pads covered with nanofur for the efficient clean-up of oil spills

Patrick Weiser; Robin Kietz; Marc Schneider; Matthias Worgull; Hendrik Hölscher

doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.102

Roll-to-roll fabrication of superhydrophobic pads covered with nanofur for the efficient clean-up of oil spills

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2022 Oct 31:13:1228-1239. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.13.102. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Patrick Weiser¹, Robin Kietz¹, Marc Schneider^{1

2}, Matthias Worgull^{1

2}, Hendrik Hölscher¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), P.O. box 36 40, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany.
² Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility for information-driven Material Structuring and Characterization (KNMFi), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.

Abstract

Superhydrophobic surfaces, which self-clean through rinsing with water, have gained significant importance during the last decades. A method to fabricate such a surface featuring the lotus effect, solely through structuring, is hot pulling of a polymer surface. This technique provides the so-called nanofur, which consists of a polymer surface densely covered with a polymeric fur of extremely thin hair-like structures. Here, we present a continuous roll-to-roll process for the fabrication of a thin polymeric film covered with nanofur from polypropylene. Our process enables structuring of large areas of the order of square meters using industry standard machinery. This opens up many possible applications for nanofur that could previously not be realized because of the limitations of conventional hot embossing regarding structurable area. The structured film is subsequently processed into an exemplary product, that is, so-called nanopads; polymeric sandwiches of polypropylene film covered with nanofur and filled with an oil-absorbing material. These are well-suited for the cleanup of small oil spills.

Keywords: R2R; hot embossing; lotus effect; nanofur; nanopads; oil spill cleanup; oil water separation; roll-to-roll; superhydrophobicity.

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by the Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF) and the MWK through the research program “Ideenwettbewerb Biotechnologie – Von der Natur lernen”.