LAUSR

Abstract Triethoxyoctylsilane modified nano-silica (TOS-SiO2) embedded polystyrene (PS) based transparent superhydrophobic coating (SHC) has been synthesized on a glass substrate via a facile sol–gel method. A dip-pulling process was employed to synthesize the coating. The morphology of the PS/TOS-SiO2 coating revealed V-shape dyads like porous structure. The static water contact angle (CA) of 162 ± 2° with a sliding angle (SA) of 3 ± 1° was obtained for the synthesized coating. The thin coating showed a high average transmittance of 91.8 ± 0.5% close to the average transmittance of bare glass (92.6 ± 0.2%). An appropriate amount of TOS-SiO2 embedded PS with unique morphology and average roughness of 65.39 ± 6.7 nm provided a transparent SHC. The transparency and roughness of the SHC were optimized by controlling the dip/pull speed and time. The developed transparent SHC can be utilized for self-cleaning application of the cover glass of solar panels.