Superhydrophilic microporous silica coatings on polymer substrate

Abstract

A transparent smooth superhydrophilic silica coating has been developed by coating a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate with microporous silica and immersing the microporous silica coating in water at 80°C. The microporous precursor sol for coating was synthesized from tetramethoxysilane under neutral conditions by accelerating the rate of the condensation with hydroxyacetone. Immersing the coating in water is an important process for removing not only the methoxy group, but also the hydroxyacetone to form the hydrophilic surface.