title: Counterion exchange to achieve reversibly switchable hydrophobicity and oleophobicity on fabrics.
abstract: We describe a simple layer-by-layer (LbL) technology and counterion exchange procedure to tune the liquid wettability of commercially available cotton fabrics. A polyelectrolyte multilayer is deposited on the fabric surface by the LbL technology, and counterion exchange is used to control the surface composition and thereby to modulate the solid surface energy. The tunability of the solid surface energy, along with the inherent re-entrant texture of the cotton fabric, results in simultaneously switchable wettability between a nonwetting state and a fully wetted state for water and hexadecane. This switchable hydrophobicity and oleophobicity can be explained within a robustness factor, which is a quantitative criterion for the transition between the two states. The counterion exchange can be confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, PR China.
authors: Jin
authors: J
authors: Yang
authors: Zhaozhu
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: Xuehu
authors: X
authors: Men
authors: Xianghui
authors: X
authors: Xu
authors: Xiaotao
authors: X
authors: Zhu
authors: Xiaoyan
authors: X
authors: Zhou