A Facile Approach for Fabrication Superhydrophobic and UV-blocking Cotton Fabrics with Self-cleaning Properties

A facile method to fabricate UV blocking superhydrophobic cotton fabric based on the deposition of TiO2 sol followed by surface modification with stearic acid is presented here. TiO2 and STA-TiO2 coated cotton fabrics were characterised by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction studies and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The UV transmittance spectral studies showed that the STA-TiO2 coated cotton had excellent UV blocking property in both UV-A and UV-B regions and in fact the hydrophobicity did not affect the UV blocking property of TiO2 coated cotton. Moreover, the STA-TiO2 coated cotton fabric had outstanding self-cleaning property which can be effectively used for oil-water separation studies. Further, the modified cotton exhibited excellent chemical durability and mechanical stability. Hence, this work can be exploited for industrial applications for the fabrication of textiles with superhydrophobic, UV blocking and self-cleaning characteristics.