Facile Synthesis of Transparent Glass Surfaces via Hydrothermal Route for Superhydrophobic Performance

A facile and peculiar synthesis strategy is designed for the fabrication of transparent superhydrophobic surfaces on simple glass substrate. The synthesis methodology comprises of two steps of hydrothermal treatment of cleaned glass substrate with ultrapure water as a solvent followed by coating of 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perflourooctyltriethoxysilane (POTS) also by hydrothermal treatment in hydrothermal reactor. The hydrothermal treatment of glass substrate lead to the nanostructured surface morphology consisting of nanofibers and a blend of nanofibers/nanoflakes. Aforesaid nanostructured surface morphology upon hydrophobic coating resulted in superhydrophobic properties, increasing the water contact angle (WCA) from 92.0° to as high as 145.3°. Moreover, the developed synthesis approach also resulted in the optical transparent superhydrophobic glass substrate thus offering an attractive methodology to employ for self-cleaning applications.