modified textiles. The stretch testwas also investigated as shown in
Fig. S4a. When the sample suffers from severe fracture by the axial
tensile force, the broken cotton yarns still preserve the superhydrophobicity
(Fig. S4b). This is because the microfibers of the
fabrics including those deeply imbedded inside were coated with
PFW/GF uniformly. Mechanical stretch would not destroy the
microstructure and surface component of the fabric and thus affects
the hydrophobicity slightly. The mechanical resistance and
self-healing property make superhydrophobic fabrics more durable
for practical applications.
3.4. Long-term stability of prepared fabrics under various extreme
conditions
For outdoor applications, the long-term stability of superhydrophobic
fabrics under special conditions is essential. Hence,
we first irradiated the superhydrophobic fabrics with the UV light
(distance 14.0 cm, UV lamp, JHT5-GL 8W), as UV irradiation is
common from outer sunlight and significantly affect their longterm
stability. Fig. 6a shows that the CA declined slightly from
157.7 to 154.7 after UV exposure for 50 h and water droplets still
displayed spherical in shape. Therefore, our fabrics perform excellent
resistance to long-term UV exposure. We next evaluated the
temperature flexibility of the superhydrophobic fabrics by treating
samples from 18 C to 160 C for 10 h. As illustrated in Fig. 6b,
water droplets also stand free as a boll after treated at 160 C for
10 h and the CA almost unchanged at 18 C for 10 h, indicating