Fabrication of a silane-modified superhydrophobic TiO₂‒PVDF‒FEP coating with scale inhibition performance

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) whiskers modified with octadecyltrimethoxysilane were incorporated into the coating solution through a solution blending method. The superhydrophobic coating was designed and fabricated using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polyperfluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) as the main constituents, while silane-modified TiO₂ whiskers as the fillers. The results demonstrated that after a 360-h scaling test, the mass of CaCO₃ on the surface of the resulted silane-modified superhydrophobic TiO₂‒PVDF‒FEP coating was only 1.90 mg·cm⁻², decreased by 37.1% and 16.7% compared with those on the PVDF‒FEP coating and the TiO₂‒PVDF‒FEP coating, respectively. The synergistic effects of the air film, silane-modified TiO₂ whiskers, and superhydrophobicity ensure that this superhydrophobic TiO₂‒PVDF‒FEP coating has excellent scale inhibition performance. This study presents a novel approach for advancing the development of superhydrophobic coatings, offering promising prospects for industrial-scale applications in preventive measures.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

TiO₂ whisker / silane modification / poly(vinylidene fluoride) / scale inhibition / superhydrophobic coating

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Authors’ contributions

Huijuan Qian: conceptualization, investigation, formal analysis, and original draft writing; Congying Lu: methodology, conceptualization, and writing — review & editing; Jin Huang: conceptualization, methodology, and editing; Zhonggui Luo: methodology, conceptualization, and methodology; Haifeng Wang: methodology, validation, and resources; Zhifeng Hou: conceptualization, resources, and supervision; Chao Wang: conceptualization, investigation, and methodology; Limin Li: conceptualization, validation, and resources; Qinghe Gao: methodology, conceptualization, and methodology; Mingliang Zhu: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, and formal analysis.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article.

Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (Grant No. LH2022B001) and the Science Research Foundation of Daqing Normal University (Grant No. 2021ZR02).

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