Aerosol-deposited Al2O3/PTFE hydrophobic coatings with adjustable transparency

With the wide range of requirements for architectural glass, such as transparency, opacity, and hydrophobicity, there is a need to address the issues in the complexity of convention methods. Thus, considering functionality and applicability in various architectural windows, hydrophobic alumina/polytetrafluoroethylene (Al2O3/PTFE) composite layers with transparency or opacity were transferred to commercial architectural glass using a facile aerosol deposition (AD) process. We successfully fabricated hydrophobic coating layers with high transmittance (only a 0.03% difference from sheet glass) by optimizing the PTFE content in Al2O3 using solution-based synthesized powders to enable a uniform surface topology. The opaque hydrophobic Al2O3/PTFE coating layers exhibit a transmittance of approximately 0% with excellent hydrophobicity of 130 degrees. Remarkably, this opaque film was successfully employed onto a large deposition area, curved substrate, and micro-patterned regions. It is believed that our AD-prepared composite layers have great potential for architectural glass in terms of economic feasibility and versatility.

Automated summary

The study demonstrated the successful fabrication of transparent and opaque hydrophobic alumina/polytetrafluoroethylene composite layers using aerosol deposition process, which not only applied to architectural windows, but also exhibited high transmittance and excellent hydrophobic properties.