title: Facile fabrication of robust superhydrophobic epoxy film with polyamine dispersed carbon nanotubes.
abstract: Nanocomposite films of superhydrophobic surface are fabricated from the dispersion of unmodified carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and hydrophobic poly(isobutylene)-amine (PIB-amine). The PIB-amine prepared from the amidation of poly(isobutylene)-succinic anhydride and poly(oxypropylene)-amines is essential for dispersing the originally entangled CNTs into the debundled CNTs as observed by TEM. A robust CNTs/epoxy nanocomposite film with high dimensional stability is made by subsequent curing with epoxy resin. The self-standing film exhibits a superhydrophobic property, with water droplet contact angle > 152° due to the CNTs controlled alignment on the surface forming micrometer-size plateaus, as observed by SEM. The preparation of PIB-amine/CNTs dispersion and subsequently curing into a superhydrophobic CNTs/epoxy film is relatively simple and can potentially be applied to large surface coating.
authors: Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
authors: Chao-Po
authors: CP
authors: Hsu
authors: Ling-Yu
authors: LY
authors: Chang
authors: Chih-Wei
authors: CW
authors: Chiu
authors: Patricia T C
authors: PT
authors: Lee
authors: Jiang-Jen
authors: JJ
authors: Lin