Journal article
Toward superhydrophobic and durable coatings: Effect of needle vs crater surface architecture
BP Dyett, AH Wu, RN Lamb
ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces | AMER CHEMICAL SOC | Published : 2014
DOI: 10.1021/am501900b
Abstract
Practical application of sol-gel derived superhydrophobic films is limited by the fragility of "needlelike" surface roughness. An efficient one step procedure is developed to prepare robust thin films with "craterlike" surface roughness from a methyltrimethoxysilane matrix and polymer sphere templates. The films could be readily spray coated to produce roughened surface textures, which are governed by template concentration and geometry. The effect of this on the wettability and robustness of thin films was examined in detail, revealing a rapid trade-off between the two characteristics due to variations in coating porosity. © 2014 American Chemical Society.
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
The financial support of the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects (Project DP120104536) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge "Surface and Chemical Analysis Network (SCAN)" for assistance acquiring and analyzing XPS spectra.