An effective and facile strategy to regulate surface characteristics of hydrophobic CeO2 nanoparticle (NPs) coating, and drastically improving interfacial adhesion of NPs with substrate is developed. In this work, CeO2 NPs are synthesized using a simple, low temperature solution process and coated using spin coating and spray coating approaches. Spin coating is an easy and quick way to produce uniform thin films over flat surfaces while spray coating is more appropriate for coating complex 3D structures. Interestingly, coating technique didn’t influenced the hydrophobic characteristics. Although the surfaces coated by CeO2 NPs had excellent hydrophobicity, they showed poor adhesion properties with the substrate, probably due to the low surface polarity of CeO2 NPs with substrates. Polyacrylic acid (PAA) is introduced as adhesion promotor to improve surface characteristics and obtain a firm coating. Slight polarity tuning and binder inclusion displayed significantly enhanced binding capability during peel-off measurement. Superior mechanical properties of PAA binder attributed to the polymeric network resulting in more active interaction sites between the binder and CeO2 NPs, ultimately aiding NPs to anchor more firmly over Si substrate. Since film adhesion to the substrate is a key issue in the fabrication of hydrophobic coatings, this simple and efficient binder coating approach could be effectively applicable for coatings with enhanced adhesion strength. CeO2 NPs coating showed stable hydrophobicity at high temperature with excellent adhesion, can be successfully applied to cooking wares since its non-toxic and harmless to the human body. We believe that such robust hydrophobic coatings can find potential in many other technological applications.

Hydrophobic CeO2 nanoparticles coating using polymer binder for enhanced adhesion capability

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.