Superoleophobic cotton textiles

Common cotton textiles are hydrophilic and oleophilic in nature. Superhydrophobic cotton textiles have the potential to be used as self-cleaning fabrics, but they typically are not super oil-repellent. Poor oil repellency may easily compromise the self-cleaning property of these fabrics. Here, we report on the prepn. of superoleophobic cotton textiles based on a multilength-scale structure, as demonstrated by a high hexadecane contact angle (153 Deg for 5 micro L droplets) and low roll-off angle (9 Deg for 20 micro L droplets). The multilength-scale roughness was based on the woven structure, with addnl. two layers of silica particles (microparticles and nanoparticles, resp.) covalently bonded to the fiber. Superoleophobicity was successfully obtained by incorporating perfluoroalkyl groups onto the surface of the modified cotton. It proved to be essential to add the nanoparticle layer in achieving superoleophobicity, esp. in terms of low roll-off angles for hexadecane. [on SciFinder (R)]