Fabrication of a superhydrophobic surface from porous polymer using phase separation

The present work reports a simple method to fabricate superhydrophobic porous polymeric surfaces by a phase separation process. The method involves the in situ polymerization of butyl methacrylate (BMA) and ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) in the presence of co-porogens of 1,4-butanediol (BDO) and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) to afford superhydrophobic surfaces with the micro/nano roughness structure. The influences of the polymerization mixture on the morphology and hydrophobicity were investigated by adjusting the composition of the co-porogens and the mass ratio of monomers to coporogens, respectively. And a precise description of the underlying mechanism of the microstructure formation was presented. The as-prepared surface shows a superhydrophobicity with water contact angle (WCA) of 159.5 degrees. and low sliding angle (SA) of 3.1 degrees. Moreover, the superhydrophobic surface shows good chemical stability with better resistance to acid, alkali or salt aqueous solutions and excellent thermal stability. The method is simple and low-cost and can be used for the preparation of the self-cleaning superhydrophobic surfaces. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.