Facilely controllable synthesis of multi-functional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites for enhancing the thermal energy release stability and enhancing anti-wetting properties

Abstract This study firstly proposed the fabrication and characterization of novel multifunctional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites with stable thermal energy release capability and anti-wetting properties via a controllable electrophoretic assembly deposition (EAD) method through co-assembly of aluminum and nickel nanoparticles and further surface functionalization with natural drying. Products exhibited promising reticulate-like microstructures with uniform distribution and high degree of crystallinity. The controllable fabrication of composites can be realized conveniently by deeply analyzing the assembly dynamics of EAD process of different nanoparticles in an optimal suspension (Visopropyl alcohol:Vpolyethyleneimine:Vperhydrobisphenol A = 50:1:1.5). The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results demonstrated a violent energy release (Q = 3.12 × 105J/kg) of composite that confirmed by the ignition tests, and the corresponding output of heat (Q) kept stable with low fluctuation degrees (Fd = ~2%) in different real environments. Moreover, products turned out to possess outstanding anti-wetting properties for various droplets with different surface tensions under changeable environments (e.g. hydrogen, oxygen, humidity, etc.) after extra-long (2 years) exposure experiments, and their contact angle still exceeded 150° even for hexadecane with a low surface tension of 27.5 mN/m. Over all, the feasibility of the concept for designing multifunctional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites demonstrated in this study has great potentials to be generally applied to facilitate the efficient design of a myriad of metal(s)@polymers composites with wide applications.