Parahydrophobic Surfaces Made of Intrinsically Hydrophilic PProDOT Nanofibers with Branched Alkyl Chains

We report the synthesis of original 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (ProDOT) derivatives containing a branched alkyl chain of various sizes and used as monomers for the formation of parahydrophobic (high apparent contact and high sliding angle) nanofibers by electropolymerization. In this work, the size of the branched alkyl chain do not have a significant influence on the surface morphology because the intrinsic hydrophobicity of the polymers is quite the same. Indeed, assemblies of long polymer nanofibers forming micro-and nanoporous structures are obtained for each polymer. These surfaces display also very high adhesion of water droplets. Indeed, the penetration of water droplets inside the surface roughness was important due to the presence of these nanofibrous structures and the intrinsically hydrophilicity of the polymers. Such materials are excellent candidates for biosensors or anti-bioadhesion.