Solar-driven self-cleaning coating for a painted surface

Here we show that a solar driven, self-cleaning coating was deposited onto organic fluorocarbon paint using a hybrid system. The system utilizes the corona treatment technique, the inert sol–gel coating and the anatase TiO 2 layer. With the corona treatment, an organic surface was activated to allow a uniform TiO 2 sol–gel coating. This sol–gel layer has two functions: firstly, it acts as binder to adhere the nano size TiO 2 particles; secondly, it acts as barrier to prevent substrate-damage from the photocatalytic reaction. Using this approach, a strong and crack-free TiO 2 sol–gel coating was obtained. The very fresh TiO 2 sol–gel coating shows almost zero water contact angle even without exposure to sunlight, and this super-hydrophilic property is retained under sunlight irradiation. These properties differentiate our approach from other study [1]. With such photocatalytic and hydrophilic characteristics, dirt residues on the surface were either readily oxidized or simply washed away by rain. .