A one-step process to engineer superhydrophobic copper surfaces

Abstract

Superhydrophobic surfaces are conventionally prepared employing two steps: roughening a surface and lowering their surface energy. In the present work, a direct voltage (DC) is applied between two copper plates immersed in a dilute ethanolic stearic acid solution. The surface of the anodic copper electrode transforms to superhydrophobic due to a reaction between copper and stearic acid solution. The fabrication process of superhydrophobic copper surfaces is simplified in just one-step.The surface of the anodic copper is found to be covered with flower-like low surface energy copper stearate films providing the water contact angle of 153 ± 2° with the rolloff properties.

Superhydrophobic organic-inorganic thin films on aluminum by a simple one-step electrochemical process

“…The high angle XRD shows four characteristic peaks of aluminum [18] and the low angle XRD spectrum prove that the thin film is the copper stearate as we reported earlier on copper surfaces [12,19] The characteristic copper stearate peaks are identified by triangular legends in Figure1b. Figure 1c shows the FTIR spectra of chemically cleaned Al substrate and that of the thin films on aluminum surfaces prepared with varying times of 1, 10 and 60 minutes.…”

“…Due to the versatile applications of superhydrophobic surfaces researchers all around the world is are continuously working in this field of research [2][3][4][5][6]. Our group is actively working in the fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces on aluminum and other metal surfaces using different techniques [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. For example, we have previously shown that copper surfaces can be made superhydrophobic by a simple one-step electrochemical process.…”

“…For example, we have previously shown that copper surfaces can be made superhydrophobic by a simple one-step electrochemical process. This one-step procedure, is not only low cost, facile and effective, but the micro-nanostructured texture of the surface can also be easily controlled by regulating the parameters of electrodeposition such as the electrolytes concentration, deposition time and applied DC voltage [12,17]. However, this method failed to modify the aluminum surfaces superhydrophobic as aluminum is not reactive like copper and does not produce aluminum stearate by this method [16].…”

Fabrication of Corrosion Resistance Micro-Nanostructured Superhydrophobic Anodized Aluminum in a One-Step Electrodeposition Process

“…Creating a rough surface, as well as reducing the surface energy is attributed to the modification of superhydrophobicity [7]. In the last few decades, a large effort has been devoted to the realization of superhydrophobic surfaces, due to their applications in biology [8], anti-corrosion [9][10][11][12], anti-icing [13], self-cleaning [14], etc.…”

Revêtements nanostructurés superhydrophobes en vue d'applications en aérodynamique /

“…Les superhydrophobes sont souvent utilisés dans le domaine biomédical [9], empêchant les contaminants de se propager sur les surfaces ou encore en augmentant les compatibilités biologique et chimique. De plus la surface peut servir comme agent anticorrosif [10] …”