Facilely controllable synthesis of multi-functional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites for enhancing the thermal energy release stability and enhancing anti-wetting properties

This study firstly proposed the fabrication and characterization of novel multifunctional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites with stable thermal energy release capability and anti-wetting properties via a controllable electrophoretic assembly deposition (EAD) method through co-assembly of aluminum and nickel nanoparticles and further surface functionalization with natural drying. Products exhibited promising reticulate-like microstructures with uniform distribution and high degree of crystallinity . The controllable fabrication of composites can be realized conveniently by deeply analyzing the assembly dynamics of EAD process of different nanoparticles in an optimal suspension ( V isopropyl alcohol :V polyethyleneimine :V perhydrobisphenol A  =  50:1:1.5 ). The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results demonstrated a violent energy release ( Q  =  3.12 × 10 5 J/kg ) of composite that confirmed by the ignition tests, and the corresponding output of heat ( Q ) kept stable with low fluctuation degrees ( F d  =  ~2% ) in different real environments. Moreover, products turned out to possess outstanding anti-wetting properties for various droplets with different surface tensions under changeable environments (e.g. hydrogen, oxygen, humidity, etc.) after extra-long (2 years) exposure experiments, and their contact angle still exceeded 150° even for hexadecane with a low surface tension of 27.5 mN/m. Over all, the feasibility of the concept for designing multifunctional aluminum/nickel/perfluorosilane composites demonstrated in this study has great potentials to be generally applied to facilitate the efficient design of a myriad of metal(s)@polymers composites with wide applications.