Fluorine-free superhydrophobic coatings from polydimethylsiloxane for sustainable chemical engineering: Preparation methods and applications

• Detailed summary of fluorine-free superhydrophobic coatings from PDMS. • Preparation methods, applications, advantages and disadvantages are summarized. • A good reference to those devoting to sustainable chemical engineering. In recent years, a great many wonderful works on fluorine-free superhydrophobic coatings have been reported. However, the detailed review is rare. Herein, the research progress on superhydrophobic coatings from non-fluorinated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was summarized, including fabrication methods and their applications. The methods were compared in terms of instruments, handling, and substrates, etc. Moreover, advantages and disadvantages were summarized. It should be noticed that these methods are not only suitable for fabrication of PDMS based superhydrophobic coatings, but also useful in coatings composed from the other non-fluorinated compounds, such as wax, long-chain alkane, and carbon nanomaterials. The various methods and their combination provide researchers and engineers a vast array of choices to fabricate fluorine-free superhydrophobic coatings. It is believed that this review is a good reference to those devoting in development of fluorine-free superhydrophobic coatings of excellent performances.