Synthesis Of Cu₂O Hollow Microspheres And Its Application In Antifouling Coating

Cu₂O power has been widely used in marine industry as a kind of antifouling agent with good performance for a long time.Due to its low toxicity,Cu₂O was used largely,but the accumulation of Cu₂O in the ocean animal has caused bad influence to the human life and produced negative impacts on our marine environment.Therefore,it is imperative to study kinds of effective,environment-friendly and small using dosage antifouling agents.Cu₂O hollow spheres not only has good antifouling properties but also the unique hollow structure could greatly reduce the consumption of Cu₂O.Then the Cu₂O hollow microspheres may be widely used in marine industry as environmental friendly antifouling agent.Two kinds of Cu₂O hollow microspheres were prepared by self-templating method and soft-templating method.The effects of different reaction conditions on the formation of Cu₂O hollow microspheres were investigated by using transmission electron microscopy?TEM?,scanning electron microscopy?SEM?,X ray diffraction?XRD?.Antimicrobial characterization and antibacterial property of Cu₂O also were studied by kinds of testing methods.Results show that the hollow microsphere has been successfully prepared by using CTAB as soft template,the hollow microsphere has the smooth surface and relatively high crystallinity.The Cu₂O hollow microspheres composed of nanoparticles were obtained through the Ostwald aging mechanism by self-templating method.In bacteriostatic test,when the concentration of two kinds hollow microspheres suspension are both 50 mg/mL,their antibacterial effect can reach more than 95%,the coatings with these hollow Cu₂O powders have the best antibacterial effect.Two kinds of antifouling hybrid coatings were obtained by using two kinds of Cu₂O hollow microspheres as anti-fouling agent and SBF as the film-forming polymer,and the commercial Cu₂O incorporation was added as the control group.The morphology of the coating was analyzed by SEM,in the experiment of algae resistance,the surface with the Cu₂O hollow microspheres doped using self-templating method and soft-templating method have no algae attachment,which means the good antifouling property,the antifouling performance is better than that of double commercial Cu₂O coating.In the contact angle test,the contact angle of the doped Cu₂O becomes larger,on the surface of the coating,the lotus like micro-nano surface structure is formed,the soft-templating method Cu₂O hollow microspheres hybrid coating has the largest contact angle,from 99 degrees up to 125 degrees.After the soaking process,the surface of the hybrid coating prepared by two methods of Cu₂O hollow microspheres have different special morphologies and the hydrophobic performance,which means that the better antifouling effect could reached by adding a small amount of the two kinds of the Cu₂O hollow microspheres.