Fabrication and anti-frosting performance of super hydrophobic coating based on modified nano-sized calcium carbonate and ordinary polyacrylate

Nano-sized calcium carbonate (CaCO3) particles were modified by heptadecafluorodecyl trimethoxysilane under acidic water condition. An ordinary polyacrylate prepared via radical copolymerization of methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate, acrylic acid and P-hydroxyethyl methacrylate was used as the binder to form hydrophobic coatings with the modified CaCO3. Super hydrophobic coating with water contact angle of 155 degrees was obtained from modified CaCO3 and the polyacrylate at their weight ratio of 8/2 by a simple procedure. Based on surface analysis by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), the super hydrophobicity can be attributed to both the surface microstructure and surface enrichment of fluoroalkyl chains. Due to a low water sliding angle, carbon black powder on super hydrophobic surface was easily removed by rolling water droplet. Furthermore, the anti-frosting performance of different surfaces was investigated, which indicated that the frost formed on superhydrophobic surface was greatly retarded compared with that on bare copper surface. The surface kept super hydrophobicity even after freezing-thawing treatment for 10 times. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.