Facile Synthesis of Tunable and Durable Bulk Superhydrophobic Material from Amine “Reactive” Polymeric Gel

Materials with extremes of water wettability are of potential interest in various fundamental and applied contexts. However, often, poor chemical and physical durabitity of conventional thin special wettable materials stands in the way of prospective applications of this property at practical settings. A chemically “reactive” polymeric gel material is introduced here, and advantage is taken of the robust and facile 1,4-Michael addition reaction between acrylate and primary amine groups to develop a chemically cross-linked and bulk (including interior and surface) superhydrophobic material. A mixture of dipentaerythritol pentaacrylate and branched poly(ethylenimine) (BPEI) can rapidly form a self-standing gel network. On removal of solvent molecules, the synthesized gel network provides a highly porous and reactive polymeric matrix that can be further modified with a variety of small molecules to tailor the liquid water wettability on the synthesized material. This approach provides a facile and rapid process to fabricate a bulk (internally) superhydrophobic material of arbitrary size that can take complex shapes. This property of the material remains intact even after various standard chemical and physical insults. This synthetic strategy could be useful in developing advanced and multifunctional materials to further broadening the applications of this anti-wetting property, including oil/water separation, self-cleaning, sustaining and slow drug release, etc.