Superhydrophobic coatings are growing in demand in textile, wearable electronics, and healthcare devices due to their nonwetting, antibacterial, anti‐icing, and self‐cleaning properties. With potential applications of superhydrophobic surfaces in consumer electronic devices, there is a huge demand to develop new materials and fabrication techniques that can help make high‐performance, scalable electronic devices directly onto the conductive and flexible substrates for a wide range of applications. Superhydrophobic materials which are highly stretchable and exhibit good electrical conductivity find applications in wearable electronics sensors, energy storage devices, anticorrosion circuits, etc. Superhydrophobicity can be achieved by creating micro/nanostructures using materials with low surface energy. In general, most of the superhydrophobic coatings are developed by making the materials’ surfaces rough by multistep procedures. However, due to the lack of excellent natural templates as well as simple and cost‐effective manufacturing procedures, a coating approach that is simple, cost‐effective, scalable, and environmentally friendly is in high demand. Finding appropriate materials, simple fabrication techniques, and cost‐effective, durable, and eco‐friendly superhydrophobic coatings for real‐life applications is still challenging. This article reviews the materials used, fabrication techniques, the theoretical background of hydrophobicity in surfaces, and the limitations of existing methods. It also reviews the superhydrophobic responses of different materials.
Materials exhibiting high dielectric constant (k) values find applications in capacitors, gate dielectrics, dielectric elastomers, energy storage device, while materials with low dielectric constant are required in electronic packaging and other such applications. Traditionally, high k value materials are associated with high dielectric losses, frequency-dependent dielectric behavior, and high loading of a filler. Materials with low k possess a low thermal conductivity. This creates the new challenges in the development of dielectric materials in both kinds of applications. Use of high dielectric constant filler materials increases the dielectric constant. In this study,the factors affecting the dielectric constant and the dielectric strength of polymer composites are explored. The present work aims to study the effect of various parameters affecting the dielectric properties of the materials. The factors selected in this study are the type of a polymer, type of a filler material used, size, shape, loading level and surface modification of a filler material, and method of preparation of the polymer composites. The study is focused on the dielectric enhancement of polymer nanocomposites used in the field of energy storage devices. The results show that the core-shell structured approach for high dielectric constant materials incorporated in a polymer matrix improves the dielectric constant of the polymer composite.
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