Investigation into the surface modification of aragonite whiskers

Aragonite whiskers (AWs) were treated with several fatty acid surfactants and silane coupling agent in order to determine the optimal modifier by using contact angle measurements. The results revealed that the AWs modified by fatty acids showed more remarkable increase in the contact angle than by silane, suggesting the former were preferentially applied in modifying AWs. While the samples coated with fatty acids exhibited hydrophobicity with contact angles ranging from 104.08° to 137.87° with increasing of carbon chain length. Therefore, the highest contact angle of AWs treated by oleic acid was discussed in detail as an example, which was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermo‐gravimetry analyses (TGA), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). FESEM and TEM results showed a thin layer coated on the modified sample surface. Both the results of TGA and XPS confirmed organic groups existed in the sample of AWs treated by oleic acid. FTIR demonstrated that calcium dioleate was formed in the modification process. Further, modification mechanism was proposed based on the obtained results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.