Fabrication of raspberry-like superhydrophobic hollow silica particles

Raspberry-like superhydrophobic hollow silica particles were prepared through a sacrificial polymer template method. The Stober method was adopted to coat silica onto the surface of cationic polymethylmethacrylate(PMMA) particles by electrostatic interaction. The surface of the PMMA-silica composite particles exhibited raspberry-like morphology with high surface roughness. Hollow silica particles were then obtained by calcination to selectively remove the PMMA core. Subsequent modification with nonafluorohexyltriethoxysilane (NFH-silane) conferred superhydrophobicity on the hollow silica particles. The surface property of this particles were investigated by measuring their water contact angle, and the results showed that such perfluorinated raspberry-like hollow particles had unique superhydrophobic. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.