Highly transparent, hydrophobic, hard and flexible coatings based on a novel melamine-formaldehyde resin synthesized by hydrophobic melamine

In recent years, the application of highly transparent hydrophobic coatings for anti-smudge of electronic displays, automotive glass surfaces, and solar cell surfaces has attracted significant attention. Melamine-formaldehyde (MF) resin has high transparency and hardness, but due to its own brittleness, there are still some research gaps in the application of high transparent hydrophobic coatings. In this work, a novel hydrophobic melamine was prepared by modifying melamine with stearyl chloride. Based on the hydrophobic melamine and alcohol modifier, a novel MF resin was prepared, which was used to fabricate high-transparency hydrophobic coatings. Long-chain alkyl materials offered low surface free energy property, and polyethylene glycol was introduced to improve the flexibility of MF resins. Therefore, the novel melamine resin coating has the performance advantages of high transparency (>95 %), high hardness (8H), high toughness (1 mm), high gloss, excellent abrasion resistance and hydrophobicity (water contact angle 104°), as well as good self-cleaning ability. This research has important enlightening significance for promoting the application progress of melamine resin in the field of coating.