Substrate-independent superliquiphobic coatings for water, oil, and surfactant repellency: An overview.

Superliquiphobic surfaces that exhibit self-cleaning, antifouling, finger touch resistance, and low drag properties with high transparency are of interest in industrial applications including optical devices, solar panels, and self-cleaning windows. In this paper, an overview of coatings using a simple and scalable fabrication technique are presented that exhibit superoleophobic/philic properties, wear resistance, finger touch resistance, and transparency. The coating comprises hydrophobic SiO2 nanoparticles with a binder of methylphenyl silicone resin. After ultraviolet-ozone treatment to the coating, an additional coating of fluorosilane or fluorosurfactant modifies the coated surface for superoleophobicity or superoleophilicity, respectively. Data for these coatings are presented showing substrate independency, the ability to repel surfactant-containing liquids such as shampoo and laundry detergent, oil-water separation, and the ability to survive up to 80 °C environments. The coatings were designed to have re-entrant geometry desirable for superoleophobicity with liquids with very low surface tension as well as surfactants.