Fabrication of all-organic superhydrophobic coatings
An actual study describes the low-cost production of superhydrophobic coatings from candle soot and carnauba wax.
Commercial application of superhydrophobic coatings is often hindered by insufficient durability and use of materials with high costs and limited availability. In a new study, scientists now report a robust water impact resistant all-organic superhydrophobic coating that is prepared from low-cost colloidal dispersion composed of carnauba wax and candle soot.
Superhydrophobicity is retained
The colloidal dispersion is stable and can be spray-coated onto virtually any surfaces. The coated surfaces exhibit superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 172° and sliding angle of 3°, and retain superhydrophobicity even after 400 cycles of continuous water spray with an impact pressure of 7.4 kPa.
The synergetic combination of candle soot and carnauba wax, together with the deposition method, solvent used to disperse materials, and spray-coating distance are critically important for the superhydrophobicity and mechanical durability. The robustness of the coatings emerges from the two-tier hierarchical structure of the dried particles which is formed by evaporation induced self-assembly of wax molecules and candle soot nanoparticles.
The study has been published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 153, April 2021.
