Fabrication of a superhydrophobic surface by straightforward immersion for copperplate artwork protection

Abstract

With the background of contemporary art, using comprehensive materials to create artworks is becoming more and more common. The new era of digital image-based copperplate artworks, using photosensitive lithography, has given traditional art forms new life and greater popularity in the digital age. However, the patterns and textures of the works created by the new techniques are generally shallow, and the copper surface is easily damaged and loses its aesthetic value, which makes it a practical problem to protect such works more effectively. In this paper, a facile method is adopted, wherein a superhydrophobic film is constructed on the surface of copperplate images by straightforward immersion in (heptadecafluoro-1,1,2,2-tetradecyl)trimethoxysilane (FAS-17) solution to achieve the anticorrosive protection of copperplate artworks. The hydrophobicity of the copper surface was analyzed using an instrument that measures contact angles. The superhydrophobic surface morphology and composition were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope coupled with an energy-dispersive spectrometer, and the corrosion resistance was analyzed using an electrochemical workstation. A systematic study is presented on the effect of the immersion time in FAS-17 and the concentration of FAS-17, and the optimal preparation conditions of the superhydrophobic film were determined, which means that the copper substrates were immersed in 0.7 mol L⁻¹ FAS-17 for 40 min. After the treatment of the surface to make it superhydrophobic, the contact angle and the corrosion inhibition efficiency of the copperplate etching surface reached 161.2° and 95.7%, respectively. The results show that the superhydrophobic film was successfully prepared on the surface of the artwork based on copper, which can effectively improve the corrosion resistance and is beneficial for the long-term protection of artwork.