Abstract
Improving silica film’s contact angle (CA) using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and iso-butyltrimethoxysilane (iso-BTMS) by the sol-gel method without adding organo-fluoride substances is of interest. Five factors, namely type of solvent, molar ratio and amounts of TEOS and iso-BTMS, mixing intensity, sol aging time, and presence and absence of poly-acrylic acid (PAA), were assessed to improve the static water CA of the film and its surface quality. Results revealed that when ethanol was used as the dissolving solvent and after adding initial iso-BTMS and TEOS concentrations of 0.0270 and 0.0194 mol/L (molar ratio = 1.39), respectively, without sonication and adding PAA/TEOS weight ratio of 0.029, then the maximum static CA of the film reached 147°, a nearly super-hydrophobic surface. Under given conditions, long-term film durability was observed, and the added PAA prevented the formation of nonhomogeneous film surfaces caused by the highly clustering aggregation of silanols under high pH conditions.
Highlights
Mimicking the lotus effect to change the surface structure and functions has been a widely researched topic [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] and is used in many fields [8], including surface coating [9,10] and textile manufacturing [11,12,13]
Sol-gel methods have been widely employed to fabricate various hydrophobic films [14,15,16,17,18,19] with detailed manufacturing processes [20]; some individual influencing factors have been investigated separately [21,22], a detailed screening of the influencing factors was considered useful in improving the film quality and identifying the key affecting factors of a sol-gel preparing process
The possible effect of the the poly-acrylic acid (PAA) size size was was verified, and the results indicated that polymers were tested topossible improveeffect the film quality, and and the exhibited the most satisfactory results
Summary
Mimicking the lotus effect to change the surface structure and functions has been a widely researched topic [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] and is used in many fields [8], including surface coating [9,10] and textile manufacturing [11,12,13] Among these studies, sol-gel methods have been widely employed to fabricate various hydrophobic films [14,15,16,17,18,19] with detailed manufacturing processes [20]; some individual influencing factors have been investigated separately [21,22], a detailed screening of the influencing factors was considered useful in improving the film quality and identifying the key affecting factors of a sol-gel preparing process. Factorial experiments were to be performed to determine crucial influencing factors and their operational conditions during hydrophobic film formation using
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