Facile synthesis of fluorine-free, hydrophobic, and highly transparent coatings for self-cleaning applications

Archive ouverte : Article de revue

Hamdi, Abderrahmane | Chalon, Julie | Laurent, Pascal | Dodin, Benoit | Dogheche, El Hadj | Champagne, Philippe

Edité par HAL CCSD ; Springer Verlag (Germany)

International audience. Non-fluorinated coatings have recently emerged as a new approach to avoid contamination on transparent surfaces. This research work concerns the synthesis of highly transparent, hydrophobic, durable, and self-cleaning coatings as an alternative to fluorine-based coatings used on glass. The developed coating is produced by a chemical route (sol–gel method) using two silica-based precursors, hexamethyldisilazane, and tetraethoxysilane (HMDS/TEOS). Then, the prepared Gel HMDS/TEOS was deposited on glass slides by the dip-coating technique. Afterward, the effects of mechanical durability, water-drop testing, thermal cycling testing, and aging times on the hydrophobicity of the gel were analyzed. The properties of the coating were characterized by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometry, and contact angle measurement. The results show that the organic modification of the gel by trimethylsilyl (-Si-(CH₃)₃) groups leads to a homogeneous and a hydrophobic surface. Sufficient dilution of this gel with ethanol has been found to provide a highly transparent coating without losing its hydrophobic property. In addition, the robust and durable coating exhibits high self-cleaning performance suitable for various industrial applications.

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