on the leaf surface results in high water contact angle (WCA) of >150° and low sliding angle of <10°. [2] Such a surface termed as "superhydrophobic" or "ultrahydrophobic," has now found myriad applications in our day-to-day lives. Superhydrophobic coatings are now being extensively investigated for applications in automobile, aerospace, building, marine, and clean energy industries. They are also explored on flexible substrates such as nonwoven materials like paper for bandages [3] and woven materials like textiles for clothing, oil-water separation, food packaging and health-care applications. [4] Surface modification of the textiles has gained increasing attention due to the flexibility, easy availability, and inexpensiveness of the raw materials. Superhydrophobicity improves the performance of the fabric, enhances the shelf life by reducing the number of laundering cycles, and aids in minimizing the expenditure of energy and resources in maintaining these materials. Various researchers have successfully demonstrated the synthesis of superhydrophobic fabrics, [5] and additional functions like antibacterial activity, [6] UV blocking, [7] electrical conductivity, [8] flame redardancy, [9] photocatalytic activity, [10] and self-healing ability [11] are now gaining attention.With growing awareness among the consumers, products that are safe, eco-friendly, and in the meantime ensuring a comfortable and healthy life are in great demand nowadays. As textiles are universally utilized for manufacturing clothes and garments, synthesis of multifunctional fabrics with superhydrophobicity, antibacterial activity, and UVblocking ability would result in manifold improvement of clothing performance. Incorporation of superhydrophobicity will make fabrics stain resistant, self-cleanable, and reduce laundering care. [12] Antibacterial activity over the surface will ensure resistance from foul odor and growth of contagious microorganisms under imperfect weather conditions. [13] Additionally, UV-blocking property would protect the wearer from harmful UV rays making these fabrics useful for outdoor purposes. [14] These properties would further enhance its application in health care, military, and various other industries.Synthesis of multifunctional fabrics with long-lasting durability remains a quest for researchers in the past decade. In this work, robust coatings on cotton fabrics for superhydrophobic, antibacterial, and UV-blocking functionalities by a dual-stage silanization technique are reported. Aminopropyltriethoxysilane is utilized as a silane cross-linker to anchor zinc oxide nanoparticles to the pristine cotton fabric surface, followed by modification with a silane hydrophobe, hexadecyltrimethoxysilane. This dual-silanization approach results in highly functional fabrics displaying superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 154°, water shedding angle of 2°, antibacterial activity of up to 98%, and UV-blocking ability more than 200 times of pristine cotton. The as-prepared fabrics display excellent durabili...
No abstract
Biotemplating utilizes a bottom-up approach to synthesize functional nanomaterials with tunable physical and chemical properties. Many naturally available biological materials have been investigated for their unique architectures, and have been successfully used as templates for nanomaterial synthesis. For example, DNA, viruses, proteins and botanical matter have been reported as bio-templates for the preparation of hybrid inorganic nanomaterials. In these reports, only nanomaterials with relatively simple stoichiometric chemistries have been successfully prepared. Preparation of nanomaterials with more complex chemical composition using biotemplating has yet to be investigated.In this thesis, botanical biotemplates are hypothesized to be useful in synthesizing nanomaterials with complex stoichiometric chemistries. Plants are not only generally abundant in nature, but can also offer unique surface chemistries and 3D porous architectures that could influence nanomaterial synthesis. To investigate this, a simple, facile biotemplating method was developed to prepare a variety of functional nanomaterials.Several land and aquatic botanical species which are known to be hydrophilic were examined. Of the species examined, moss was identified to be the most promising; moss is exceptionally hydrophilic and is able to take up a large amount of metallic precursors.The moss plant also provides a 3D interconnecting pore network which could be preserved after annealing.The 3D interconnected framework conferred by moss was found to be beneficial to electrode materials in metal-ion battery technologies. In particular, the monoclinic lithium vanadium phosphate Li3V2(PO4)3 (LVP) is known to be an outstanding cathode material due to its high energy storage capabilities, cycling rates and good thermal stability. Here, the moss plant was successfully utilized as a template to prepare pure, crystalline and mesoporous LVP nanomaterials. The investigation of the formation mechanism of LVP on moss was carried out, and found that the negatively-charged surface of moss was in fact Abstract ii critical for the molecular recruitment of LVP precursors. Finally, the electrochemical performance of the as-annealed LVP nanomaterials was also examined.Next, the same synthesis strategy was extended to prepare LiNi0.5M1.5O4 (LNMO). The LNMO is also a promising cathode material, widely pursued for metal-ion battery applications to increase energy density with high operational voltages. A pure phase of non-stoichiometric disordered cubic spinel (Fd3m) of LiNi0.5M1.5O4-δ using moss as a biotemplate was obtained. After examining the electrochemical performance of the assynthesized LNMO, it was found to exhibit superior charging capabilities, comparable to other LNMO nanomaterials prepared using conventional chemical methods.In summary, plants are demonstrated to be promising materials of use in biotemplating approaches. In particular, the moss plant provides a suitable surface chemistry that can be used to recruit metallic precursors. Utilizing this cap...
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