Facile fabrication of superhydrophobic coating based on polysiloxane emulsion

Abstract We fabricated superhydrophobic coating by casting the alkoxy polysiloxane copolymerization emulsion containing fumed silica and phenyltrimethoxysilane (PhTMS)/γ-(2,3-epoxypropoxy) propytrimethoxysilane (EPTMS) on the glass slide. The copolymerization emulsion was prepared by methyl triethoxysilane (MTES), n -propyltrimethoxysilane (PTMS), polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) and EPTMS. The morphology, wettability and thermostability of the prepared composite coating films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), the water contact angle measurement and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The results indicated that the contact angles of coating surface increased first and then decreased with the increase of the amount of fumed silica, while the sliding angle first decreased and then increased. Under the mass of fumed silica keeping constant, the sliding angle of coating surface decreased obviously with the increase of the total of mixture silanes, but the contact angle had no significant change. When the content of fumes silica was 23 wt% and the total mass of PhTMS and EPTMS was 15 wt%, the contact angle was 156.1° and sliding angle was 3°, and the thermostability of as-prepared surface coating was good. The superhydrophobic polysiloxane coating was excepted for waterproof application.