Fabrication of surface-functionalized PUA composites to achieve superhydrophobicity

Abstract

Herein, we present a facile fabrication method to prepare the optically transparent, flexible and self-cleanable poly(urethane acrylate) (PUA) superhydrophobic film. The low surface energy siloxane functionalization on the thermally activated µ-patterned PUA/graphene oxide composite (S-PG) was found to be a successful strategy to modify the PUA intrinsic hydrophilicity into superhydrophobic nature. The S-PG film (with GO content of 0.1 wt%) repeatedly showed the water contact angle (WCA) of 149.82 ± 1° with excellent self-cleaning property. Further, the fabricated film exhibited high optical transparency (80%) in the 400–800 nm wavelength region. Finally, the practical applicability of the fabricated S-PG film was demonstrated by using the film as a protective layer for solar panel module. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar module with and without S-PG superhydrophobic film was found to be 5.98% and 5.82%, respectively. The enhancement in the PCE performance of the solar module is attributed to the excellent optical transparent and less light reflecting nature of the proposed film.