Fabrication of silica-based superhydrophobic coatings with remarkable wear resistance, corrosion inhibition ability and thermal stability

Abstract

The present work is to report an efficient fabrication of silica-based coatings with superior hydrophobicity, wear resistance and corrosion inhibition ability. In the fabrication procedure, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) was chosen as the silica precursor and hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) was opted to produce silica sol. The hydrolysis of TEOS was monitored by the ammonia released from HMDS and the hydrophobicity of the formed silica sol was modified by the generated silicane and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. The prepared hydrophobic silica sol was coated on the substrate with grafting agent composed of glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane, alkylamine and silica nanospheres. The fabricated coatings revealed superior hydrophobicity with a water contact angle as high as 163° and a sliding angle as low as 1.0°. Simultaneously, the coatings exhibited excellent corrosion inhibition ability, wear resistance and thermal stability, as well as self-cleaning ability. The preparation procedure efficiently improved the hydrophobicity of silica-based coatings, solving the inherent difficulty existent in fabrication of this type of coatings that the presence of grafting agent commonly led to lower hydrophobicity. This procedure simplified the sophisticated conventional procedure, providing an efficient routine to fabricate silica-based superhydrophobic coatings.