Colorful Fluorine-Free Superhydrophobic Polyester Fabric Prepared via Disperse Dyeing Process

Superhydrophobic fabrics suffer from issues, such as poor breathability, surface color and handle changes, and toxicity because of additional chemical coating. Therefore, to resolve these issues, colorful fluorine-free superhydrophobic polyester fabrics are prepared by controlling the conditions of a conventional disperse dyeing process. Alkaline hydrolysis, a pretreatment process in the dyeing process, is modified to create nanocraters on the surface of microrough polyester fabric. Then, the hydrolyzed polyester fabric is dyed with two different dyestuffs accompanied by thermal aging to lower the surface energy. The developed polyester fabrics become superhydrophobic and show the static contact angles over 160 degrees and the shedding angles below 10 degrees. Furthermore, the superhydrophobic polyester fabric exhibits improved color fastness as well as water vapor transmission rate and air permeability, while the handle properties of the alkaline-hydrolyzed polyester fabric remain unchanged after dyeing and thermal aging. Finally, the self-cleaning ability of the developed fabric is demonstrated by perfectly removing silicon carbide particles from its surface. Therefore, the developed fluorine-free and superhydrophobic polyester fabric not only has color but also is nontoxic and environmentally friendly and can be readily recycled as it has no coated chemical to be removed. Thus, it has great potential for practical applications.