Fabrication of fluorine-free, comfortable and wearable superhydrophobic fabrics via capacitance coupled plasma with methyl side-chain lauryl methacrylate coatings

Superhydrophobic fabrics show great potential for use in functional gear, military clothing, and other applications; however, the introduction of toxicity and degraded wearing comfort restrict their applications. In this work, superhydrophobic fabrics with excellent wearing comfort have been prepared by coating of fluorine-free lauryl methacrylate (LMA) and subsequent crosslinking via radio-frequency capacitance coupled plasma (CCP). The treated cotton fabric demonstrated excellent superhydrophobicity and excellent wearing comfort. Due to the reactions between cotton and LMA and the crosslinking of LMA under plasma treatment, the LMA-coated cotton (Cotton-g-LMA) fabric is durable enough to resist physical rubbing (1500 cycles), washing (45 cycles), ultraviolet (UV) radiation ageing (48 h) and boiling water ageing (10 h). More importantly, the plasma treatment exerted little influence on the comfort of the cotton fabrics. Additionally, this method could be applied to various cellulose fabrics, e.g., cotton, ramie and viscose materials. The facile and scalable method presented here paves the way for the design of fluorine-free, comfortable and wearable superhydrophobic fabrics.