Scalable preparation of efficiently self-healing and highly transparent omniphobic coating for glass

Abstract

Omniphobic coatings with low contact angle hysteresis (CAH) are of great practical significance. Yet, the mass production of coating with high transparency and a long service life through a facile and scalable approach still remains a challenge. By constructing covalent bonds between glass substrate and coating, in this work, a facile approach for the preparation of slippery coating for glass by ultrasonically immersing the substrate in a copolymer solution was proposed, which is a promising material to meet all aforementioned requirements. Corresponding results showed that the CAH for water and hexadecane on the surface of coating are both lower than 5°, while the CAH for high-viscosity glycerol is around 13°. Also, the transmittance of the coated glass at a visual wavelength of 550 nm is as high as 93 %. Thanks to the thermal self-healability of the coating, the omniphobicity experienced sand drop abrasion, water cleaning and high-speed water impact can be regained. Still, the transmittance is over 90 %. Meantime, it is gratifying to see that the omniphobicity can be self-healed by using a portable hair drier at a designated area efficiently. This facile approach presented here shows potential in the scalable preparation of self-cleaning and anti-fouling coatings with high transparency.