A facile method for the fabrication of superhydrophobic films with multiresponsive and reversibly tunable wettability

Abstract

This paper presents a facile method of fabricating smart film surfaces with multiresponsive, reversibly tunable wettability. In this method, when poly(styrene-n-butyl acrylate-acrylic acid) (P(S-BA-AA)) was mixed with TiO₂ nanoparticles in tetrahydrofuran (THF) and then simply cast onto glass substrates, followed by drying at room temperature, intelligent films were formed. The as-obtained nanocomposite films not only exhibited very fast response to UV light, heat and pH, but also showed excellent reversibility. The formation mechanisms of the superhydrophobic films and their multiresponse were investigated in detail using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total (internal) reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).