We report the development of low moisture permeation and transparent dense polyacrylate/silica nanocomposite material that can exhibit both superhydrophobic and oleophobic (omniphobic) properties. The material was prepared by a three-step process. The first step involved the preparation of UV polymerizable solventless hybrid resin and the fabrication of nanocomposite. The hybrid resin consisted of a mixture of acrylate monomer, initiator, and acrylate-modified different size silica nanoparticles. The second step was to roughen the surface of the nanocomposite with unique nanotexture by oxygen plasma. In the third step, we applied a low surface tension fluoro monolayer on the treated surface. The nanocomposite exhibits desired superhydrophobicity and oleophobicity with a water contact angle of 158.2° and n-1-octadecene contact angle of 128.5°, respectively; low moisture permeation of 1.44 g·mm/m(2)·day; and good transparency (greater than 82% at 450-800 nm for ~60 μm film). The material has potential applications in optoelectronic encapsulation, self-cleaning coating, etc.
BiFeO 3 nanofibers of different morphologies and dimensions were produced by electrospinning varying the collector and thermal treatment. By thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) the thermal behavior of the as-spun nanofibers was studied. The morphology of the nanofibers was examined by transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM and SEM, respectively) while the chemical composition and crystal structure were analyzed by energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS) and wide angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD). A vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) was used to evaluate the magnetic properties. Different types of mats with different nanofibers´dimen-sions were obtained; while some nanofibers were interconnected, others were completely separated and aligned. The thinnest nanofibers were obtained using an aluminum substrate with folds and after annealing at 550 ∘ C. All samples annealed at this temperature formed pure BiFeO 3 , while samples annealed at 550 and 750 ∘ C formed an additional Bi 2 Fe 4 O 9 phase. No iron impurities were detected; the crystallite size of all the nanofibers was between 30 and 36 nm. The saturation magnetization increased with the decrease of the nanofiber´s diameter and increase of nanofibers interconnectivity. Thus, this ferromagnetism behavior was attributed to the suppression of the spiral spin structure of BiFeO 3 (which has a 62 nm period) and to the morphology of interconnected nanofibers.
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