Superhydrophobic and oleophobic dual-function coating with durablity and self-healing property based on a waterborne solution

Abstract A superhydrophobic surface is typically constructed by combination of both low surface energy substance and high roughness microstructure. Although these surfaces have been widely used in the application of self-cleaning, water harvesting and anti-icing, the problems of organic solvents during the preparation process and the undesirable durability have largely limited their practical application. This paper describes a new concept and derived environmental friendly method based on a waterborne solution for the fabrication of durable superhydrophobic and oleophobic surfaces with self-healing property. In this concept, aluminum oxide particles were employed to construct the rough microstructure, fluorosurfactant and fluorinated alkyl silane were employed as low surface energy materials. The obtained surfaces coated on different substrates (glass, wood, fabric, polymer, metal) showed not only excellent water repellent performance with water contact angle larger than 150° and sliding angle is less than 10° but also oleophobic for some low surface energy organic liquid such as glycol, oleic acid, cooling oil and dimethyl formamide. The surfaces show excellent durability to solutions with different pH, abrasion resistance and self-healing by heating the oxygen-plasma-destroyed surface. The proposed coatings with excellent superhydrophobic and oleophobic performance will demonstrate the potential application in self-cleaning and antifouling.