PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATIONS OF PTFE GRADIENT NANOSTRUCTURE ON SILK FABRIC

Superhydrophobic materials have been extensively studied because of their wonderful array of properties and applications. In this study, normal and superhydrophobic surface of silk fabric have been prepared via deposition of different shapes of PTFE nanostructure using magnetron sputter coating. The effects of PTFE sputter coating on surface morphology and surface chemical properties were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and ATR-FTIR (attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy). The wettability of the fabric was characterized through measuring the surface contact angle by drop shape analysis apparatus and dynamic contact angle by Wilhelmy technique. As evaluated by water contact angle measurements, all the treatments resulted in a significant enhancement in the hydrophobicity of silk fabric, while larger sputtering pressures brought bigger PTFE nanoparticles, which led to higher contact angles. The results have also revealed that alternant working pressures, could bring gradient nanostructures which generated both high contact angle and less contact angle hysteresis.