A Versatile Method to Construct Superhydrophobic Fabrics with Good Durability and Self-cleaning Performance

In this paper, various fabrics with good self-cleaning performance were prepared via a facile dip-coating method. The fabrics composed with different fibers and woven techniques were firstly immersed in ZnO sol to increase the surface roughness, then dip-coated in fluoroalkylsilane (HFT) solution to reduce the surface energy. The coated fabric showed excellent superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle (WCA) of 157.8 degrees and water shedding angle (WSA) of 5 degrees. The morphologies and chemical compositions of prepared fabrics were observed with SEM, XPS and EDS. The obtained fabric kept stable water-repelling property in acidic and alkaline solutions, solvents and UV irradiation. Benefited from its high antiwater ability and photocatalysis function of ZnO, the coated fabric demonstrated excellent self-cleaning performance. This versatile approach of constructing superhydrophobic fabrics is attractive and could be large-scaled employed in industrial production process.