Extreme Water Repellency of Nanostructured Low-surfce-energy Non-woven Fabrics

Bongsu Shin, Kwang-Ryeol Lee, Myoung-Woon Moon, Ho-Young Kim
 

We report extreme water repellent nature of non-woven fabrics of PET (polyethyleneterephthalate) whose fiber surfaces are nanotextured with oxygen plasma and coated with a low-surface-energy nanofilm. The surface effectively suppresses vapor condensation and repels condensed water droplets in addition to exhibiting a high contact angle and a low contact angle hysteresis with a millimeter-sized water drop. We also show that the surface maintains superhydrophobicity after water-vapor condensation and after oil wetting due to high-aspect-ratio nanohairs on the fibers. These superior water-repellent abilities of the plasma treated non-woven fabric can be exploited in a variety of industrial applications including water harvesting and fuel cell water management even under oily contaminations.