title: Super-amphiphilic surface of nano silica/polyurethane hybrid coated PET film via a plasma treatment.
abstract: This study first reports the fabrication of a super-amphiphilic surface using PET films with a silica-polyurethane hybrid top-coat layer through a non-thermal, one-atmospheric-pressure plasma treatment. This surface displays contact angle close to zero with both aqueous and oily liquids, which has attracted enormous attention for a wide-range of practical applications. We systematically investigated the influence of the plasma treatment time on the wetting behavior of the silica-polyurethane coated PET surface. The changes in morphology and chemical composition of PET surfaces before and after a plasma treatment were analyzed. In order to gain an insight into the formation of a super-amphiphilic PET surface and optimize the conditions under which super-amphiphilicity can be realized, we used a hemi-wicking action as a theoretical model and experimentally verified it through determining the critical angle. We also proposed a guide for designing a nano-sphere patterned PDMS surface which can generate super-wetting properties after a plasma treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Van-Tien
authors.initials: VT
authors.lastname: Bui
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, PR China.
authors.forename: Xuyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute for Basic Science, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Seung Hyeon
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: hchoi@cnu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Ho-Suk
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Choi
keywords: Hemi-wicking action; Organic/inorganic hybrid coated film; Plasma treatment; Silica nanoparticles; Super-amphiphilic surface