Preparation and Wetting Properties of Layered Double Hydroxide Colloidal Nano/Microspheres with Tunable Flower-Like Morphologies

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs), known as a type of multifunctional anionic layered clay, typically exhibit stability and intrinsic hydrophilicity at neutral and alkaline pH. We herein report a polymer bead-templated preparation of flower-like LDH shell microspheres with the LDH platelets tuned under different aging durations and temperatures. Thickness of LDH shell walls was tuned readily by varying preparation conditions such as aging durations and temperatures. After a simple chemical surface modification using fluorine-silane molecule, the flower-like LDH nano/microspheres show the distinctly different transitions from the intrinsic hydropholicity to the superhydrophobicity at pH 2 and neutral pH. In contrast, at alkaline condition of pH 12 small flower-like spheres were formed atop of the parent microspheres, which may be argued in terms of a process of desorption of silane molecule at the alkaline condition combined with dissolution and reassembly of LDH platelets. Our finding of the superhydrophobic LDH spheres may find useful applications in chemical and biosensors against harsh acidic conditions.