Preparation of Hydrophilic Antifogging Film Materials by Silicate Minerals

Abstract Silicate minerals are widely used as green, nontoxic, low-cost materials. In this experiment, hydrophilic antifogging films of silicate minerals were prepared by the vacuum evaporation coating method. The hydrophilicity, antifogging performance, optical properties, and surface morphology of the film materials were analysed and characterised by the contact angle meter, the hydrothermal method, the ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer, and the atomic force microscope, respectively. The results show that the contact angle of the prepared mineral hydrophilic antifogging film is less than 25° and is hydrophilic. When the thickness of the film is 100–200 nm, the antifogging effect is the best. As the thickness increases, the antifogging effect weakens. The film material has little effect on the transmittance of the substrate. When the film thickness is 100 nm, the maximum transmittance is 92.2%, which is 4.5% higher than the uncoated substrate and has some effect on increasing the transmittance. With the increase of film thickness, the mineral material nanoparticles gradually accumulate densely on the substrate surface, and the roughness of the sample surface decreases, which leads to the decrease of hydrophilic properties and antifogging performance of the film.