Conductive Polymer Porous Film with Tunable Wettability and Adhesion

Materials (Basel). 2015 Apr 16;8(4):1817-1830. doi: 10.3390/ma8041817.

Abstract

A conductive polymer porous film with tunable wettability and adhesion was fabricated by the chloroform solution of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyricacid-methyl-ester (PCBM) via the freeze drying method. The porous film could be obtained from the solution of 0.8 wt%, whose pore diameters ranged from 50 nm to 500 nm. The hydrophobic porous surface with a water contact angle (CA) of 144.7° could be transferred into a hydrophilic surface with CA of 25° by applying a voltage. The water adhesive force on the porous film increased with the increase of the external voltage. The electro-controllable wettability and adhesion of the porous film have potential application in manipulating liquid collection and transportation.

Keywords: adhesion; conductive porous material; electro-wettability; freeze-drying.