Preparation of biomimetic hair-like composite coatings with water-collecting and superamphiphobic properties

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.porgcoat.2021.106372Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The composite coatings exhibit excellent repellence to water and various low-surface-tension liquids.

  • The composite coatings are stable against severe temperature, concentrated acids and alkalis, as well as mechanical damages.

  • The morphologies of prepared hair-like composite coatings are regular and controllable

  • The design strategy may provide useful guidelines for the fabrication of large-scale regular superamphiphobic surfaces.

Abstract

Superamphiphobic coatings have been widely used in self-cleaning and antifouling materials because of their unique liquid repellency. In this study, magnetic Fe3O4 particles and resin were sprayed to construct hierarchical scales of texture, and 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane was used to reduce surface free energy, and a biomimetic hair-like composite coating was prepared. The microstructure and chemical composition of the coating was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Both aqueous and oily liquid droplets can retain a perfectly quasispherical shape on the coating surface. The biomimetic hair-like composite coating exhibited superior water-collecting and superamphiphobic properties as well stable resistance against severe temperature, concentrated acidic, alkaline solutions and mechanical damages. This design strategy may provide useful guidelines for the fabrication of large-scale regular superamphiphobic surfaces.

Introduction

Superamphiphobic surfaces display contact angles of θ > 150° and contact angles hysteresis of CAH < 10° with virtually high and low surface tension liquids [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]]. Inspired by the superamphiphobic phenomenon in nature, biomimetic superamphiphobic surfaces have drawn considerable research interest in recent years due to their potential to impact a large number of applications, including self-cleaning [7,8], anti-fouling [[9], [10], [11]], chemical shielding [12], antifogging [13], anti-icing [14], antibacterial surface [15], corrosion prevention [16,17], oil-water separation [[18], [19], [20]], and so forth. Previous works have discussed the significance of a very specific surface morphology–re-entrant, convex curvature, overhang or hierarchical scales of texture in obtaining surfaces that can repel low surface tension liquids [21,22]. The introduction of this specific surface morphology can increase the contact angles and decrease the contact angle hysteresis by reducing the solid−liquid contact area. Generally, “top-down” methods such as chemical/electrical etching, lithographic techniques, or colloidal lithography are used for fabricating superamphiphobic surfaces with re-entrant, convex curvature and overhang geometries [[23], [24], [25], [26], [27]]. Photolithography is the most commonly approach to precisely manufacture specific geometries morphology with regular structures. However, these methods are rather time-consuming, usually involving expensive lithographic tools, or complicated chemical procedures, and cannot be applied on a large scale. In contrast to “top-down” methods, “bottom-up” strategy via the physical deposition by spray-, spin-, or dip- coating is one of the most commonly used methods to achieve hierarchical scales of texture superamphiphobic coatings due to its simple, fast and large-scale production [[28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]]. However, the superamphiphobic theory of hierarchical scales of texture is ambiguous because of the disorderly stacked arrangement in the coating. Accordingly, it is of great significance to create such regular superamphiphobic coating by simply physical deposition methods.

In this work, we show a simple but robust, one-step spraying method for engineering superamphiphobic coatings. Due to the non-contact nature of the magnetic field force and the directional induction of the magnetic field lines, the magnetic field force is often used to construct a regular surface structure. Therefore, we present a facile strategy for fabricating water-collecting and superamphiphobic hair-like composite coatings by spraying a mixture of magnetic Fe3O4 particles and PDMS under the induction of the magnetic field. Two kinds of typical hair-like structures can be obtained by controlling the spraying time. The hair-like composite coatings exhibit excellent repellence to water and various low-surface-tension liquids. And the hair-like composite coatings is stable against severe temperature, concentrated acids and alkalis, as well as mechanical damages.

Section snippets

Materials

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS, SYLGARD 184) was received from Dow Corning Corp (the weight ratio of main agent to curing agent is 10:1). K-9761 transparent epoxy resin (Kafuter) was received from Guangdong Evergrande New Material Technology Co., Ltd. (the weight ratio of main agent to curing agent is 2:1). Magnetic Fe3O4 particles (1 μm and 50 nm) were purchased from Hangzhou Jikang New Material Co., Ltd. Permanent magnet (cylinder with a diameter of 5 cm and a height of 2 cm) was purchased from

Preparation and characterization of the hair-like composite coatings

The fabrication procedure of hair-like composite coatings with water-collecting and superamphiphobic properties is illustrated in Scheme 1. Briefly, a mixture of magnetic Fe3O4 particles (1 μm) and PDMS dispersed in toluene solution is uniformly sprayed on the glass slide with a magnet directly underneath. Under the induction of the external magnetic field, the Fe3O4 particles drive the PDMS to grow in the direction of the magnetic field lines, and obtain a hair-like composite coating. The

Conclusions

In summary, we have developed a biomimetic hair-like composite coatings with water-collecting and superamphiphobic properties by facile spraying method. Compared to the previously reported columnar-like or tower-like array structure with only exhibiting superhydrophobic properties prepared by magnetic field induction, our strategy has some unique merits: It can produce more regular array structures. More importantly, biomimetic hair-like composite coatings own not only excellent

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Y.W. conceived the concept and designed the research. Y.W., G.X. and T.W. conducted the experiments and analysis. Y.W. and D.W. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

Financial supports of this research from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52003206) are appreciated.

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