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Artificial honeycomb-inspired TiO2 nanorod arrays with tunable nano/micro interfaces for improving poly(dimethylsiloxane) surface hydrophobicity

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Abstract

This work demonstrates a bottom-up model of fabricating a honeycomb-inspired interface consisting of micro- and nanostructures for improving poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) hydrophobicity. TiO2 nanorod arrays and microsized voids were fabricated by a two-step hydrothermal reaction method. First, rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays were hydrothermally fabricated on the fluorine-doped SnO2 conductive substrates substrate. Second, microsized TiO2 voids were synthesized through HCl hydrothermal etching to obtain a honeycomb-inspired interface with tunable size. The size of the etched voids increased from 0.22 ± 0.06 to 8.0 ± 2.8 μm. The interfaces were then transferred on the PDMS surface to improve hydrophobic property. The contact angles of the corresponding positive PDMS replicas reached 140° after etching with the TiO2 nanorod arrays for 10 h. The size of mastoid structures on the PDMS surfaces was 7.5 μm, which is similar to the size of microstructures on the lotus leaf surface. The fabricated PDMS surface with tunable hydrophobicity properties can be used in the microfluidic channels in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financial supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81402466, 61404060) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei (No. 2015CFB610). The authors also acknowledge the financial support from the Ph.D. research foundation of Jianghan University.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Institute for Interdisciplinary Research & Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Chemical Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education, Jianghan University, Wuhan, 430056, China

      Rongxiang He, Jingrong Xiao, Minli Zhang, Zhengtao Zhang, Weiying Zhang, Yiping Cao, Yumin Liu & Yong Chen

    2. Département de Chimie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231, Paris Cedex05, France

      Yong Chen

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    1. Rongxiang He
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    Correspondence to Rongxiang He, Yumin Liu or Yong Chen.

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    Jingrong Xiao and Minli Zhang have contributed equally to this work.

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    He, R., Xiao, J., Zhang, M. et al. Artificial honeycomb-inspired TiO2 nanorod arrays with tunable nano/micro interfaces for improving poly(dimethylsiloxane) surface hydrophobicity. J Mater Sci 51, 2935–2941 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9602-z

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