Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have developed a new spray-on material with a remarkable ability to repel water.
The new protective coating could eventually be used to waterproof mobile phones, prevent ice from forming on aeroplanes or protect boat hulls from corroding.
"The surface is a layer of nanoparticles, which water slides off as if it's on a hot barbecue," said PhD student William Wong, from the Nanotechnology Research Laboratory at the ANU Research School of Engineering.
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Ref: Ultra-Durable and Transparent Self-Cleaning Surfaces by Large-Scale Self-Assembly of Hierarchical Interpenetrated Polymer Networks. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (20 May 2016) | DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b03414
ABSTRACT
In nature, durable self-cleaning surfaces such as the Lotus leaf rely on the multiscale architecture and cohesive regenerative properties of organic tissue. Real-world impact of synthetic replicas has been limited by the poor mechanical and chemical stability of the ultrafine hierarchical textures required for attaining a highly dewetting superhydrophobic state. Here, we present the low-cost synthesis of large-scale ultradurable superhydrophobic coatings by rapid template-free micronano texturing of interpenetrated polymer networks (IPNs). A highly transparent texture of soft yielding marshmallow-like pillars with an ultralow surface energy is obtained by sequential spraying of a novel polyurethane-acrylic colloidal suspension and a superhydrophobic nanoparticle solution. The resulting coatings demonstrate outstanding antiabrasion resistance, maintaining superhydrophobic water contact angles and a pristine lotus effect with sliding angles of below 10° for up to 120 continuous abrasion cycles. Furthermore, they also have excellent chemical- and photostability, preserving the initial performance upon more than 50 h exposure to intense UVC light (254 nm, 3.3 mW cm–2), 24 h of oil contamination, and highly acidic conditions (1 M HCl). This sprayable polyurethane-acrylic colloidal suspension and surface texture provide a rapid and low-cost approach for the substrate-independent fabrication of ultradurable transparent self-cleaning surfaces with superior abrasion, chemical, and UV-resistance.
