Various curing conditions for controlling PTFE micro/nano-fiber texture of a bionic superhydrophobic coating surface

A simple and conventional coating-curing process to fabricate superhydrophobic coating surface with both the micro-nano-scale binary structure (MNBS) roughness, and the lowest surface energy hydrophobic groups (-CF3) on engineering materials of stainless steel or other metals was developed by control of curing conditions. Results show that higher temperature and longer cooling time resulted in longer crystallizing process, and the forming PTFE aggregates could slowly produce the crystallization and create the willow-leaf-like or wheat-haulm-leaf-like polymer micro/nano-fiber on the atop surface. The curing temperature dramatically influences the micro/nano-fiber texture of the PTFE/PPS superhydrophobic coating surface, leading to the excellent superhydrophobicity at higher temperature. An increase of the curing temperature is beneficial to fluorine gradient-distribution, PPS thermal-oxidative cross-linking and oxidative reaction, resulting in the enhancement of adhesive strength and mechanical properties of the PTFE/PPS superhydrophobic coatings. A bionic superhydrophobic surface with porous gel-like network and PTFE micro/nano-fiber textures could be created by natural cooling in air, whereas PTFE nano-sphere/-papillates textures could be fabricated by hardening in H2O. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.