A novel method to prepare superhydrophobic, self-cleaning and transparent coatings for biomedical applications

In this paper, a novel method of preparing nanostructured ultra-thin films for transparent superhydrophobic coatings is reported for the first time [1]. A sol-gel process that uses a eutectic liquid solvent was employed. This solvent serves as both a low vapor pressure, low melting point liquid and a templating agent in the sol-gel process. UV-Visible spectra indicate that after coating a glass microscope slide, with the transparent superhydrophobic coating, the light transmittance improved relative to that of a bare glass slide. The superhydrophobic surface is biocompatible because of the extremely low surface energy that results from the combination of a fluoroalkyl chain attached to the surface and the surface nanostructure. Preliminary studies suggest that the superhydrophobic coating may effectively prevent surface contamination by bacteria.