Construction of Economical Dip-Coater for the Fabrication of Hydrophobic Coatings

DOI : 10.48129/kjs.20811

Abstract

D.C. motors were considered the basic components for the construction and development of various nanotechnology research equipment due to their constant speed and high efficiency. Spin coater, dip-coater, and spray pyrolysis were a few among them which utilize the above-mentioned component for the production of thin-film coatings on the desired substrates. Conventional spin coater, dip-coater, and spray pyrolysis incur huge costs to purchase and install in research laboratories. In this letter, we report the economical construction of an Arduino-based dip-coater that uses a linear actuator consisting of a D.C. motor for the production of hydrophobic coatings. The dip and drawl rate of the as-constructed machine was estimated to be 3mm/sec and can be varied according to the requirement without any interferences of vibration. Further, the dip-coater was tested with TiO₂ gel for the production of hydrophobic coatings on cotton fabrics. The coated fabrics were characterized using an x-ray diffractometer (XRD), which confirmed the presence of TiO₂, and reflectance analysis using ultraviolet-visible and near-infrared spectroscopy (UV-VIS-NIR) on the coated fabric revealed a short increase in the visible spectra and an elongated increase in the infrared spectral region, and goniometer examination with a water droplet on the treated fabric revealed 137^O contact and proved as a superhydrophobic coating.