Fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces based on PDMS coated hydrothermal grown ZnO on PET fabrics

Wetting behavior of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) based nanomaterials has been the subject of intense investigations and is an active research field for various engineering applications and modifying the surface wettability of ZnO is of great interest. In this study, one-dimensional (1 D) semiconducting ZnO nanorods are grown on a superhydrophobic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabric using a hydrothermal method. A facile polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coating is applied onto the ZnO grown PET fabrics to improve the hydrophobicity. A wide range of characterization techniques such as field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis spectroscopy and contact angle measurement are used to explore the morphology and wetting behavior of the as-prepared samples. The measured water contact angle (WCA) is >150° indicating its superhydrophobicity. This study reports an efficient way to obtain highly hydrophobic semiconducting ZnO grown on PET fabric, which can be of great interest for many future applications.