Hydrophobic Functionalization of Graphene Oxide Film by Pulsed Hexamethyldisiloxane Plasma

Abstract Graphene oxide (GO) membranes show good separation performance in membrane distillation processes, which require at least a single-sided hydrophobic surface to resist liquid penetration, but such hydrophobic GO membrane cannot be facilely prepared by conventional wet chemical processes. Here, a pulsed plasma hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) process was investigated, with the highest surface contact angle of 124° obtained. The results demonstrate that a plasma deposition process can provide a proper route to prepare surface-selective hydrophobic GO films, which facilitates their applications for membrane distillation processes and related fields.