표면 개질된 SiC 나노 입자를 활용한 스프레이 기반 균일 초소수성 코팅

초록

Superhydrophobic (SH) coatings have received considerable attention for their potential use inwater-repellent, anti-corrosion, and anti-icing applications. However, conventional spray-based SH coatingsoften suffer from non-uniform hierarchical structures due to uncontrollable nanoparticle aggregation duringsolvent evaporation, which significantly limits their practical performance and scalability. In this study, wedeveloped a surface chemistry-based strategy to improve the uniformity of SH coatings by precisely controllingthe surface polarity and functional group density of the nanoparticles. Specifically, silicon carbide (SiC)nanoparticles, which originally exhibit very low surface hydroxyl content, were chemically modified via acidtreatment followed by the grafting of hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (H-PDMS) to tune theirsurface polarity and interparticle interactions. The modified SiC nanoparticles formed aggregates withoptimized size which significantly enhanced uniformity during the spray deposition process, resulting inrobust and uniform hierarchical surface structures. Compared to unmodified SiC and conventional SiO2nanoparticles, the coatings fabricated with modified SiC exhibited a high water contact angle of 163.5o as wellas remarkably reduced contact angle variation across the coated area, confirming the improvement in spatialuniformity. This work demonstrates that precise control over nanoparticle surface functionalization is criticalfor achieving uniform and scalable superhydrophobic surfaces and provides a foundational strategy forovercoming aggregation-induced non-uniformity, thereby advancing the industrial applicability of spraydepositedSH coatings.

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