A multifunctional and environmentally-friendly method to fabricate superhydrophilic and self-healing coatings for sustainable antifogging

Antifogging films are essential in many areas, such as eyeglasses, windshields, goggles and so on. In this work, a transparent antifogging film was successfully prepared on glass by spin-coating a mixture of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and iron (III) chloride hexahydrate (FeCl3·6H2O). The coated film was superhydrophilic and showed excellent anti-frosting and self-healing properties. The composite coating was resistant to fouling by oil and had a very small water sliding angle about 3.1°. This coating could maintain its antifogging performance after by tape-peeling test for 80 cycles and being exposed to UV irradiation for 96 h. The diverse desirable functions demonstrated and the facile preparation procedure of the film offer huge potential in many practical applications.