In Situ Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Zinc Sulfide Films on a Flexible Zinc Foil Substrate

A superhydrophobic ZnS film was successfully fabricated by a simple solvothermal method using Zn foil and S powder as raw materials in an absolute ethanol solution at 160 degrees C for 8 h. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and contact angle (CA) measurements. The results show that the obtained ZnS film was hexagonal phase, composed of many dense and uniform interconnected nanoflakes of average thickness ca. 120 nm. A possible reaction mechanism was proposed and discussed. It was found that the ZnS film exhibits superhydrophobicity owing to its special nanoflake structure.