Construction of hydrophobic surfaces on polyvinylidene fluoride film and cotton fabric using perfluorohexane functionalized carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide

Hydrophobic surfaces have great potential in applications in oil-water separation, super water/oil repellents, friction reducing, etc. Hydrophobic performance has been extensively investigated in view of smart textile development. Oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) were grafted with perfluoro-1-iodohexane, and 10.24 and 17.65 at% fluorine contents of these functional products were obtained, respectively. The surface chemistry of the functionalized CNTs and GO were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Hydrophobic textiles were achieved by treating the functionalized CNTs and GO using a common dip-dry method. The functionalized CNTs and GO were also applied to polyvinylidene fluoride filter paper by the vacuum filtration method to form hydrophobic films. The morphologies of these surfaces were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy. The functional cotton fabrics showed hydrophobicity with water droplet contact angles (CAs) of 149.1 degrees and 154.4 degrees, respectively. The produced films showed hydrophobicity with CAs of 108 degrees and 151 degrees, respectively. The difference of the CA was attributed to the diversity of both the structure and the chemical composition. In future study, multifunctional materials could be created on the basis of the hydrophobic surfaces reported in this paper by combining them with other functional components, which has great potential in applications in the smart textiles.