Superhydrophobic surface fabricated by bulk photografting of acrylic acid onto high-density polyethylene

A superhydrophobic polymeric surface was prepared through a very simple bulk photografting method. A thin layer of acrylic acid (AA), a highly hydrophilic monomer, was sandwiched between two high-density polyethylene (HDPE) sheets, followed by UV irradiation for a short time, and then the two sheets were pulled apart and dried. The contact angles on the two grafted surfaces decreased very quickly with irradiation time in the first several seconds, and then increased with irradiation time to a level higher than that on pristine HDPE surface. When using a scraped PE surface as the bottom one, it showed superhydrophobicity after 35 s irradiation. XPS investigations show that strong rearrangement of the poly(acrylic acid) molecules has taken place on both surfaces, especially on the bottom surface, which provides the low surface free energy. The scraping and the grafting process led to the formation a unique micro- and nanostructure on the surface. These two factors lead to the superhydrophobicity. The as-prepared surface possesses superhydrophobic properties in a wide range of pH values, stimuli-responsive properties and low or very high adhesion under different situations.