Abstract
Water-repellent surfaces, often referred to as superhydrophobic surfaces, have found numerous potential applications in several industries. However, the synthesis of stable superhydrophobic surfaces through economical and practical processes remains a challenge. In the present work, we report on the development of an organosilicon-based superhydrophobic coating using an atmospheric-pressure plasma jet with an emphasis on precursor fragmentation dynamics as a function of power and precursor flow rate. The plasma jet is initially modified with a quartz tube to limit the diffusion of oxygen from the ambient air into the discharge zone. Then, superhydrophobic coatings are developed on a pre-treated microporous aluminum-6061 substrate through plasma polymerization of HMDSO in the confined atmospheric pressure plasma jet operating in nitrogen plasma. All surfaces presented here are superhydrophobic with a static contact angle higher than 150° and contact angle hysteresis lower than 6°. It is shown that increasing the plasma power leads to a higher oxide content in the coating, which can be correlated to higher precursor fragmentation, thus reducing the hydrophobic behavior of the surface. Furthermore, increasing the precursor flow rate led to higher deposition and lower precursor fragmentation, leading to a more organic coating compared to other cases.
Highlights
A superhydrophobic surface is defined as a surface for which the equilibrium water contact angle (WCA) is higher than 150◦ [1] and contact angle hysteresis is lower than 10◦ [2]
The plasma jet is modified by mounting a quartz tube on the jet head, confining the discussed
In plasma polymerization of HMDSO in the jet of nitrogen plasma produced by rotating arc discharges
Summary
A superhydrophobic surface is defined as a surface for which the equilibrium water contact angle (WCA) is higher than 150◦ [1] and contact angle hysteresis is lower than 10◦ [2]. The development of an organosilicon-based superhydrophobic surface through atmospheric-pressure plasma deposition of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) is reported. In this specific paper, emphasis is placed on the precursor fragmentation dynamics and the effects of ‘available energy per precursor molecule’ on coating properties. Using a dielectric barrier discharge operating at atmospheric-pressure, Siliprandi et al have shown that for low HMDSO concentrations (less than 0.3% in their study), the deposition process strongly depends on precursor presence in the plasma. Longer residence times can be linked to higher precursor fragmentation, which correlated to higher oxide content in the case of HMDSO deposition This has been confirmed by investigating the effects of plasma gas velocity and precursor injection position on surface chemical composition [36]. Static and dynamic water contact angle measurement, the resultsand are surface correlated with the precursor fragmentation dynamics, surface chemical composition, and surface morphology
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