Abstract
Roof leakage is a common phenomenon on rainy days and makes residents uncomfortable. Superhydrophobic materials are promising candidates to protect grass houses from rainwater. However, mechanical weakness, chemical corrosion, and UV light sensitivity are the three main challenges restricting these nonwetting materials from wider application in real life. Herein, we developed an inorganic–organic superhydrophobic paint (IOS-PA) for preparing a waterproof grass house. IOS-PA not only showed mechanical robustness and chemical anticorrosion but also displayed self-healing properties, anti-icing properties, and high and low temperature (150 °C and −196 °C) resistance. Photocatalysis was also achieved with IOS-PA, as demonstrated by organic matter (Nile red, methyl blue, and methyl orange) degradation. Moreover, extremely long-term UV resistance, i.e., resistance to UV irradiation (365 nm, 5.0 ± 0.6 mW/cm2) for 100 h and ambient sunlight for 8640 h (1 year), caused the conflicting properties of superhydrophobicity and photocatalysis to coexist in IOS-PA, further accomplishing self-cleaning for the removal of both dirt particles and organic contamination. Specifically, a grass house coated with IOS-PA exhibited favorable waterproof properties, indicating the potential to ensure comfortable living conditions for people living in undeveloped areas, even on rainy days. With a variety of excellent characteristics, IOS-PA, we believe, is advantageous for scalable production and practical application in reality.
Highlights
According to Monitoring Global Poverty, published by the World Bank in 20171, extreme poverty still persists in remote and undeveloped areas in Africa and Asia
Two kinds of TiO2 NPs were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Fig. 1a) and were confirmed to be coated with epoxy resin (ER) according to transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images (Fig. 1b–c)
Anatase and rutile TiO2 NPs in our coating were demonstrated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) (Supplementary Fig. S18)
Summary
According to Monitoring Global Poverty, published by the World Bank in 20171, extreme poverty still persists in remote and undeveloped areas in Africa and Asia. Constructing waterproof grass houses is an effective approach to enable free and comfortable lives. Due to their strong water repellency, bioinspired superhydrophobic materials have attracted wide attention[4,5,6,7,8,9] and are anticipated to be usable for preparing nonwetting grass houses. An all-organic water-repellent coating containing resin polymer and polytetrafluoroethylene nanoparticles (PTFE NPs) was developed that exhibited mechanochemical robustness resulting from the mechanical and chemical properties of the nanocomposite constituents[16]. With its UV-resistant water repellency, mechanical robustness, chemical anticorrosion properties, self-healing properties, resistance to low- and hightemperature damage, anti-icing properties, photocatalysis, and self-cleaning properties, our multifunctional IOS-PA indicates the potential for necessary, meaningful, and practical applications in waterproofing houses in undeveloped areas
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