Start Over

Tuning Superhydrophobic Materials with Negative Surface Energy Domains.

Authors :: Wu Z
Liu L
Li S
Ji S
Chen P
Cui S
Ma Z
Weng Y
Huang Q
Wu Z
Wu H
Lin Y
Fu RKY
Lin H
Tian X
Chu PK
Pan F
Source :: Research (Washington, D.C.) [Research (Wash D C)] 2019 Nov 30; Vol. 2019, pp. 1391804. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Nov 30 (Print Publication: 2019).
Publication Year :: 2019
Abstract: Hydrophobic/superhydrophobic materials with intrinsic water repellence are highly desirable in engineering fields including anti-icing in aerocrafts, antidrag and anticorrosion in ships, and antifog and self-cleaning in optical lenses, screen, mirrors, and windows. However, superhydrophobic material should have small surface energy (SE) and a micro/nanosurface structure which can reduce solid-liquid contact significantly. The low SE is generally found in organic materials with inferior mechanical properties that is undesirable in engineering. Intriguingly, previous theoretical calculations have predicted a negative SE for θ -alumina ( θ -Al <subscript>2</subscript> O <subscript>3</subscript> ), which inspires us to use it as a superhydrophobic material. Here, we report the experimental evidence of the small/negative SE of θ -Al <subscript>2</subscript> O <subscript>3</subscript> and a θ -Al <subscript>2</subscript> O <subscript>3</subscript> -based superhydrophobic coating prepared by one-step scalable plasma arcing oxidation. The superhydrophobic coating has complete ceramic and desired micro/nanostructure and therefore exhibits excellent aging resistance, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, high-temperature tolerance, and burning resistance. Owing to the rarity of the small/negative SE in inorganic materials, the concept to reduce SE by θ -Al <subscript>2</subscript> O <subscript>3</subscript> may foster a blowout to develop robust superhydrophobicity by complete inorganic materials.<br />Competing Interests: The authors declared no competing interests.<br /> (Copyright © 2019 Zhongzhen Wu et al.)