Sticky superhydrophobic hard nanofibers from soft matter

Abstract

Superhydrophobic soft and hard nanofibers with various water adhesions are obtained by electrodeposition of poly(3,4-propylenedioxythiophene) (ProDOT) derivatives containing two branched alkyl chains. In the case of the hard nanofibers, the fibers are vertically aligned to the substrate and their characteristics can be easily controlled but always with high water adhesion.

Low bioaccumulative materials for parahygrophobic nanosheets with sticking behaviour

“…This process has huge advantages such its deposition speed, the possibility to stop the reaction by switching off the apparatus and the control in the formation of surface structures by modifying electrochemical parameters or the monomer structure. The ProDOT heterocycle is one of the best monomers for its polymerization ability but also for the formation of nanostructures such as nanofibers [28,29]. Specifically, the substitution in the 3-position was found to be the best for the formation of nanostructures because it leads to the highest polymer chains [34].…”

“…Such nanostructures can be obtained without template in solution [14,15] or on surfaces by self-assembly [16], grafting [17,18], vapour-phase polymerization [19,20] or electropolymerization [9,21]. They are mainly produced in the literature using polyaniline [22,23], polypyrrole [24,25], poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) [21,26,27] and poly (3,4-propylenedioxythiophene) (PPro-DOT) [8, 28,29]. The electropolymerization consists on monomer electrochemical oxidation to induce in one-step the polymerization, the deposition on a substrate used as working electrode and the formation, in certain conditions, of surface structures.…”

Highly Polar Linkers (Urea, Carbamate, Thiocarbamate) for Superoleophobic/Superhydrophobic or Oleophobic/Hydrophilic Properties

“…[22][23][24][25] Very recently, superoleophobic properties were obtained using polar amide linker, which are both hydrophilic and oleophobic. [ 26 ] These properties were obtained only with nanofi bers as surface morphology.…”

Controlling water adhesion on superhydrophobic surfaces with bi-functional polymers

“…Using electropolymerization, the monomer 3,4propylenedioxythiophene (ProDOT) is also known to form nanofibers. As such ProDOT serves as a flexible template for modification with different substituents offering a broad tunability of both surface structures and wetting properties [27][28][29][30][31]. In particular, when the substituents are orthogonal across the ProDOT moiety [32][33][34] long polymer chains and good quality fibers structures may be generated, and in this respect both hydrocarbon and chains and fluoroalkyl chains have been studied [35][36][37][38].…”