Chemistry of super-hydrophobic surfaces, of silicon and of silicones

Prateek Verma / 01 September 2010

polymers materials silicon chemistry

Silicon is an interesting element. It is the second most abundant element on earth after Oxygen. Its chemistry is remarkable too, especially when compared to the abundantly studied chemistry of its group-buddy, Carbon. We worked on creating superhydrophobic surface on silica using silanes. The technique is useful in creating water repelling windows, smartphones and other common surfaces. We also synthesized tiny (stack 200 of them on top of each other and they would still be thinner than paper!) silica spheres with one big challenge - all spheres should be more or less the same size! A modified version of the magical chemistry devised by Stöber was used. On other days, we used some silane-vinyl coupling chemistry to synthesize crosslinked silicones (a rubber like, but clear and stronger substance) of varying toughness.