Transparent superhydrophilic composite coating with anti-fogging and self-cleaning properties

Weilin Deng; Yifan Su; Churui Zhang; Wei Wang; Lili Xu; Ping Liu; Jinlei Wang; Xinquan Yu; Youfa Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.130

Transparent superhydrophilic composite coating with anti-fogging and self-cleaning properties

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jul 15:642:255-263. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.130. Epub 2023 Mar 24.

Authors

Weilin Deng¹, Yifan Su², Churui Zhang³, Wei Wang⁴, Lili Xu⁵, Ping Liu⁶, Jinlei Wang⁷, Xinquan Yu⁸, Youfa Zhang⁹

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: Materdwl@163.com.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: 213202242@seu.edu.cn.
³ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: 2502943487@qq.com.
⁴ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: stevennjut@gmail.com.
⁵ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: 1959473049@qq.com.
⁶ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: liupingcomeon@126.com.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Float Glass, CNBM Research Institute for Advanced Glass Materials Group Co., Ltd, Bengbu 233000, PR China. Electronic address: wangjinlei@ctiec.net.
⁸ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: x.q.yu@163.com.
⁹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, PR China. Electronic address: yfzhang@seu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37004259
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.130

Abstract

Superhydrophilic coatings have incomparable advantages in anti-fogging and self-cleaning but are limited to poor abrasion resistance and water resistance. Consequently, the research on the contradiction between hydrophilicity and water resistance, as well as abrasion resistance and visible transmittance, has become a focus of superhydrophilic coatings. Herein, we design a ceramic-polymer superhydrophilic composite coating with a high density, strong cross-linking structure, and smooth surface. Because of its static water contact angle (WCA = 3.2°) and short water spreading time (ST = 1878 ms), the transparent composite coating exhibits anti-fogging performance. Meanwhile, it exhibits anti-fogging durability even after 400 Taber abrasion cycles under a 250 g load or immersion in boiling water for 30 min. Furthermore, the result of self-cleaning characterization and theoretical analysis demonstrate that the low surface roughness endows the composite coating with excellent self-cleaning properties. The composite coating can effectively scavenge oil and dust pollution on its surface in a humid environment. Thus, the developed composite coating in this work is potential in the anti-fogging and self-cleaning fields.

Keywords: Anti-fogging; Boiling water; Self-cleaning; Superhydrophlilic; Taber abrasion.