Improvement of water-repellency homogeneity by compound fluorine-carbon sprayed coating and silane treatment

To improve the water-repellency of materials, a composite coating of fluorine-carbon has been developed in this study. A thermal sprayed coating produced by using a compound fluorine-carbon-cored wire exhibits excellent water-repellency. However, the contact angles of water of the coating surface show remarkable scatters since the fluorine is usually difficult to be distributed uniformly on the coating surface. To improve the homogeneity of the water- repellency of the thermal sprayed coating, a surface modification using silane solution was further processed. Optimal processing conditions were investigated. The results show that highly cross-linked polymers characterized with water-repellency were formed on the sprayed coating, and the scatter of the contact angle is decreased. Empirically, the contact angle of the coated surface was 130+/-5degrees for water. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.