A green and facile method to fabricate superhydrophobic coatings

Abstract

In this work, we reported a green and facile method to fabricate superhydrophobic coatings via blending TiO 2 nanoparticles and fluorinated acrylate copolymers. The fluorinated acrylate copolymers were synthesised with the method of solution polymerisation using ethanol as solvent. The integration of TiO 2 nanoparticles and the fluorinated acrylate copolymers satisfied two necessary conditions of multi-scale nano/microstructures and low surface energy for fabricating superhydrophobic coatings. It was found that the water contact angle and contact angle hysteresis of the as-prepared coatings were respectively 156.3° and 3.7°, and it indicated that the coatings had excellent superhydrophobicity and self-cleaning ability. In particular, these coatings showed good thermal stabilities. Owing to its flexibility, simplicity and non-toxicity, the method is not only a facile and inexpensive way to achieve the lotus effect but could also create coatings with high values in practical application.