Design of Waterborne Superhydrophobic Fabrics with High Impalement Resistance and Stretching Stability by...

Superhydrophobic fabrics have great application potential in many fields including wearable electronic devices, sports textiles, and human health monitoring, but good water impalement resistance and stretching stability are the prerequisites. Here, we report the design of waterborne superhydrophobic fabrics with high impalement resistance and stretching stability by constructing elastic reconfigurable micro-/micro-/nanostructures. Following theoretical analysis, two approaches were proposed and employed: (i) regulating distance between the microfibers of polyester fabrics to decrease the solid-liquid contact area, and (ii) forming reconfigurable two-tier hierarchical micro-/nanostructures on the microfibers by stretching during dipping to further decrease the solid-liquid contact area. The effects of microfiber distance and micro-/nanostructures on microfibers on superhydrophobicity and impalement resistance were studied. The superhydrophobic fabrics show excellent impalement resistance as verified by high-speed water impact, water jetting, and rainfall, etc. The fabrics also show excellent stretching stability, as 100% stretching and 1000 cycles of cyclic 100% stretching-releasing have no obvious influence on superhydrophobicity. Additionally, the fabrics show good antifouling property, self-cleaning performance, as well as high abrasion and washing stability. The experimental results agree with the theoretical simulation very well. We anticipate that this study will boost the development of impalement-resistant and stretching-stable superhydrophobic surfaces.