Fabrication of a super-hydrophobic nanofibrous zinc oxide film surface by electrospinning

We report a new approach for fabricating a super-hydrophobic nanofibrous zinc oxide (ZnO) film surface. The pure poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and composite PVA/ZnO nanofibrous films can be obtained by electrospinning the PVA and PVA/zinc acetate solutions, respectively. After the calcination of composite fibrous films, the inorganic fibrous ZnO films with a reduced fiber diameter were fabricated. The wettability of three kinds of fibrous film surfaces were modified with a simple coating of fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) in hexane. The resultant samples were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), water contact angle (WCA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It was found that the pure PVA fibrous films maintained the super-hydrophilic surface property even after the FAS modification. Additionally, the WCA of composite fibrous films was increased from 105 to 132° with the coating of FAS. Furthermore, the surface property of inorganic ZnO fibrous films was converted from super-hydrophilic (WCA of 0°) to super-hydrophobic (WCA of 165°) after the surface modification with FAS. Observed from XPS data, the hydrophobicity of FAS coated various film surfaces were found to be strongly affected by the ratio of fluoro:oxygen on the film surfaces.