Fabrication Of Micro/Nanostructured Superhydrophobic Fibrous Membrane By Electrospinning

Superhydrophobic material has a surface whose water static contact angle is larger than 150° and rolling contact angle is lesser than 10°, which has been used in many applications including self-cleaning, oil-water separation, antifreeze, and so on. Surface energy and surface roughness are the dominant factors for wettability of materials, so regulation of surface roughness could directly influence superhydrophobic property. Electrospinning is a simple and effective way to fabricate micro to nano-scale fibers. Since it is convenient to regulate morphology and diameter of the fibers, and the topological structure of fibrous membrane to fabricate micro/nanostructures, electrospinning is also widely used in fabrication of composite superhydrophobic materials（beads and fibers）. In this research, superhydrophobic surface were prepared by SEBS. Specific research details as follows:（1）SEBS fibrous membrane which has abundent micro/nanostructures was fabricated by electrospinning. In order to obtain different micro/nanostructures, we regulated morphology, diameter of the fibers, and the topological structure of fibrous membrane. The result shows that water static contact angle of fibrous membrane can be increased to 142°, however, rolling contact angle is much higher than 10°, which means it don’t have superhydrophobic property.（2）Composite fibrous membrane was consisted of SEBS fibers and SEBS beads. We electrosprayed SEBS beads on SEBS electrospun fibrous membrane surface to investigate the types, density and surface morphology of beads’ influence on its hydrophobic property. It shows that water static contact angle of SEBS composite fibrous membrane is above 156°, and rolling contact angle is 8°. Besides, after thermal annealing, composite fibrous membrane maintains superhydrophobic ability, meanwhile it has a great resistance to water flush.（3）Composite fibrous membrane was fabricated by SEBS and SiO₂ nanoparticles. Firstly, we electrospun SEBS and SiO₂ nanoparticles to investigate the distribution of nanoparticles on fiber surface, which has significant influence on hydrophobic property. Besides, SiO₂ nanoparticles were electrosprayed on SEBS electrospun fibrous membrane surface to investigate the density and size of SiO₂ aggregates’ effect on its hydrophobic property. The result shows that both electrospun SEBS/SiO₂ fibrous membrane and electrospraying SiO₂ on SEBS fibrous membrane’s water static contact angle is larger than 150° and rolling contact angle is lesser than 10° due to the introduction of SiO₂ nanoparticles.