Influence of annealing and etching on physical and wetting properties of acrylic surface

The objective of this research aims to study the surface modification of acrylic for superhydrophobic applications. The acrylics were modified using annealing at 50, 75 and 100 °C for 1 h. To evaluate the effect of etching on the morphology of acrylic substrates, two different acids between tetrahydrofuran (THF) and chloroform with their concentration of 99.8 % v/v were used to etch for 1 min. Then, the annealed acrylics were etched by THF because chloroform has highly hazardous acid and low transparency after etching. The effects of annealing and wet chemical etching on morphology, optical properties and wettability can be characterized using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Vickers hardness tester, UV/Vis spectroscopy and water contact angle measurement. This result exhibits that the hardness of acrylic increases with the increase of annealing temperature. Furthermore, the wet chemical etching has direct affected to the wettability of acrylics due to the increasing of surface roughness.