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Data from: Facile fabrication of fluoro-polymer self-assembled ZnO nanoparticles mediated, durable and robust omniphobic surfaces on polyester fabrics

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Jun 10, 2020 version files 354.33 KB

Abstract

Omniphobic surfaces have been widely used in many applications, especially due to their self-cleaning property. Omniphobicity of a surface is directly interpreted by measuring the contact angle that it makes with a liquid of interest. In this study, polyester fabric was made omniphobic with a measured water contact angle (WCA) of 152° by reducing the surface free energy of the fabric surface via the polymerization of 3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,8-tridecafluorooctyl methacrylate(TDM) on a ZnO seed layer. The fabrics with and without the seed layer were characterized using various analytical techniques. The WCA of the fabric with the seed layer was 153° compared to 142° of the fabric without the seed layer. The treated fabric made a contact angle of 132° with SAE 40 motor oil indicating its oleophobicity while non-treated fabric made no contact angle. In addition to that, the treated fabric is omniphobic against milk tea, coffee, coconut oil, and ethanol. The morphological analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the treated and non-treated fabrics revealed that the particle size of the seed layer applied fabric was ranging from 100-300 nm and upon the TDM application it became less than 100 nm. Elemental analysis by EDS showed the presence of fluorine and FT-IR analysis confirmed the polymerization of TDM. The polymerization of fluoropolymer was further confirmed by TGA and DSC analyses. The contact angle of the surface-modified fabric remained unchanged even after 1.5 h washing and 50 cycles of abrasion. The modified fabric is robust and no change was observed in the colour of the fabric during the process. More importantly the preparation method of the fabric is simple, low cost and quick.