Over the past few decades, hydrophilic films have been widely used in antifogging, antifrosting, and antifouling applications due to their strong affinity to water. While the water contact angle value has been employed as an indicator to probe the water affinity of films, they oftentimes fail to predict the performances as this value depends on the measurement environment as well as the presence of surface heterogeneity. In this work, nanostructured hydrophilic films comprising of chitosan (CHI) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is used as the model system and oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) groups with strong hydrogen bonding capabilities are additionally grafted on CHI (CHI-OEG) prior to assembly to systematically investigate their effect on antifogging and antifouling performances. Comparison between CHI-OEG/CMC film and chemically cross-linked nanoporous CHI/CMC film reveals that the water contact angle value does not directly correlate with the antifogging and antifouling properties. Moreover, alternative methodologies including differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) are proposed to more accurately determine the water affinity in the design of antifogging coatings with frost and fouling-resistant capabilities.

Molecular architecture design and characterization of polysaccharide-based films for antifogging and antifouling applications

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ACS Fall 2022

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