Preparation of Transparent Sandwich-like Superhydrophobic Coating on Glass with High Stability and Self-Cleaning Properties

Abstract

High stability and transparent superhydrophobic coating on a glass substrate that can effectively repel the wetting dust as a self-cleaning property are beneficial traits for solving the decrease in optical lens clarity in an unmanned underground mining environment. However, the transparent superhydrophobic coating has still not been applied due to the contradiction between visibility, hydrophobicity and durability. Herein, a sandwich-like superhydrophobic coating was designed and prepared on borosilicate glass, which consisted of a micro/nanostructure body of neutral silicone sealant (primer) and hydrophobic silica nanoparticles (interlayer), as well as a protective layer of ultraviolet (UV) gel. The coated glass exhibited excellent superhydrophobicity towards many aqueous solutions, and had highly visible light transparency of 80% at 4 wt.% primer mass content. Furthermore, significant tests including the droplet impact, hot water boiling, stirring in acetic acid aqueous solution and sandpaper abrasion were performed on our superhydrophobic coating, which indicated that the obtained transparent coating had good stability and excellent mechanical durability. The coated glass also showed a more wonderful self-cleaning property compared with that of the original glass. This superhydrophobic coating on glass substrate, fabricated by a facile and cost-effective layer-by-layer construction approach, has great potential for general and practical application in the unmanned mining environment under multiple dust and atomized water conditions.

Electroless Ni-P-PTFE Composite Plating with Rapid Deposition and High PTFE Concentration through a Two-Step Process

“…Using nanotechnology, these techniques successfully produce elaborate fine nanostructures with superhydrophobicity even from hydrophilic materials. However, these morphology-focused techniques have limited use cases with respect to industrial applications, particularly regarding metal-based surfaces, because their delicate surface shapes entail high fabrication costs and are extremely vulnerable to abrasion [1][2][3][4].…”

Development of self-cleaning polydimethylsiloxane/nano-calcium carbonate-titanium dioxide coating with fog-resistance response for building glass

“…Therefore, the recent fabrication process of coating must be simple, user-friendly and can be cured at ambient temperature. Li et al (2022) have developed superhydrophobic silica coating via spray-coating method, and the coating was left cured under 1 h of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. The hydrophobicity and transparency of coating were adjusted by altering the concentration of primer UV gel content.…”

“…The recent developments of coating showed great self-cleaning performance; however, the proposed coating systems do not show fog-resistance property (Yu et al , 2018; Liu et al , 2021; Sutar et al , 2021; Li et al , 2022). Apart from dust particles, fog deposition is the real challenge in real environment.…”