Superoleophilic Titania Nanoparticle Coatings with Fast Fingerprint Decomposition and High Transparency.
Low surface tension sebaceous liquids such as human fingerprint oils are readily deposited on high energy surfaces such as clean glass, leaving smudges that significantly lower transparency. There have been several attempts to prevent formation of these dactylograms on glass by employing oil-repellent textured surfaces. However, nanotextured superoleophobic coatings typically scatter visible light, and the intrinsic thermodynamic metastability of the composite superoleophobic state can result in failure of the oil repellency under moderate contact pressure. We develop titania-based porous nanoparticle coatings that are superoleophilic and highly transparent and which exhibit short time scales for decomposition of fingerprint oils under ultraviolet light. The mechanism by which a typical dactylogram is consumed combines wicking of the sebum into the nanoporous titania structure followed by photocatalytic degradation. We envision a wide range of applications because these TiO2nanostructured surfaces remain photocatalytically active against fingerprint oils in natural sunlight and are also compatible with flexible glass substrates.
Hyungryul J
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1828-1114
HJ
Choi
Kyoo-Chul
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2630-0688
KC
Park
Hyomin
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0968-431X
H
Lee
Thomas
T
Crouzier
Michael F
MF
Rubner
Robert E
RE
Cohen
Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, Singapore.
George
G
Barbastathis
Gareth H
GH
McKinley
fingerprint degradation; photocatalytic effects; smudge resistant; superoleophilic surfaces; titania nanoparticles; transparent nanoporous surfaces