Nano-silica modified with silane and fluorinated chemicals to prepare a superhydrophobic coating for enhancing self-cleaning performance

Superhydrophobic coatings with excellent self-cleaning performance have attracted significant concerns from researchers. Although various superhydrophobic coatings with prominent superhydrophobic properties have been fabricated, most developed coatings are still inadequate in pipeline scale inhibition applications. In this work, nano-silica (nano-SiO₂) was modified by silane coupling of vinyltriethoxysilane (VETS) and 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane (PFTS) to prepare a superhydrophobic coating. Organosilicon of PFTS and VETS was grafted onto the surface of SiO₂ for preparing the superhydrophobic coating with low surface energy, and the superhydrophobic coating was cured via poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF). The results showed that the contact angle of the prepared silica-based superhydrophobic coating, denoted as VETS-PFTS@SiO₂/PVDF, is 159.2°, exhibiting outstanding superhydrophobicity performance. Furthermore, the superhydrophobicity coating also showed satisfactory durability performance in 200 g load wear test after 50 cycles. Importantly, the superhydrophobic coating displayed promising mechanical durability, chemical stability performance, as well as maintained excellent superhydrophobic properties after being placed in water for 3 weeks, indicating the potential for long-term utilization. In the simulated scale inhibition test, it was found that the synthesized coating can also significantly decrease the deposition rate of CaCO₃ and successfully enhance its scale inhibition performance.