Superhydrophilic Coating of Pine Wood by Plasma Functionalization of Self-Assembled Polystyrene Spheres

Publication

Author: Sebastian Dahle, John Meuthen, René Gustus, Alexandra Prowald, Wolfgang Viöl, Wolfgang Maus-Friedrichs coatings
URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings11020114
Date: 2021
Instruments: NanoScan Lab

Self-assembling films typically used for colloidal lithography have been applied to pine wood substrates to change the surface wettability. Therefore, monodisperse polystyrene (PS) spheres have been deposited onto a rough pine wood substrate via dip coating. The resulting PS sphere film resembled a polycrystalline face centered cubic (FCC)-like structure with typical domain sizes of 5–15 single spheres. This self-assembled coating was further functionalized via an O2 plasma. This plasma treatment strongly influenced the particle sizes in the outermost layer, and hydroxyl as well as carbonyl groups were introduced to the PS spheres’ surfaces, thus generating a superhydrophilic behavior.