Self-healing hydrophobic coatings Cesar III Reyes, Prof. Claire J. Carmalt, Prof. Ivan P. Parkin Department of Chemistry, University College London, United Kingdom
Transparent, self-healing hydrophobic coatings have been synthesised using polymeric materials such as epoxy resin (EP) and PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane, Sylgard184) components with contact angles ca. ~105° and optical transparencies ~88% with respect to pristine glass at 91% transparency in the 400-800 nm wavelength range. Coatings were deposited using easy to scale methods such as spray, spin, and dip-coating. Samples were subject to plasma-treatment testing, UV-exposure, and scratch testing, followed by heat treatment at 200 °C as the trigger to the self-healing process. The optimal coating was found to be EP/PDMS in an ethyl acetate solvent without the PDMS curing agent, which displayed the most consistent self-healing character whilst still being transparent and hydrophobic. Coatings were characterised using FTIR, XPS, SEM, EDS, and UV/Vis spectroscopy. Templating materials with a desired morphology such as a diffraction grating, sandpaper, Cu-nanoneedles, and physically/chemically etched Al sheets was also investigated by creating PDMS templates which were applied onto polymer coatings to replicate the surface morphology. These techniques combined were studied to find a pathway to create self-healing superhydrophobic surfaces with supplementary characteristics either from additive nanoparticles or replicated surface morphologies using the templating approach.
P286-L
© The Author(s), 2023
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