Wetting Behavior of Metal-Catalyzed Chemical Vapor Deposition-Grown One-Dimensional Cubic-SiC Nanostructures

Abstract

Superhydrophobic surfaces can be fabricated by using the self-assembled nanoarchitecture of 3C-SiC one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures as they are capable of forming a dense network of micro-nano air pockets without any help from external sources. Herein, the metal-catalyzed growth of 3C-SiC nanowires/nanorods on Si substrates via vapor-liquid-solid mechanism using five different catalysts, that is, chemically synthesized Au nanoparticles and direct current-sputtered thin films of Au, Cu, Ni, and Ti, is reported. Relatively new or unexplored catalysts such as thin films of Cu and Ti, as well as drop-cast Au nanoparticles, were used. An optimized and separate growth was carried out for each catalyst in an inductively heated horizontal cold-wall atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition reactor. An insight into the catalytic growth mechanism of 3C-SiC 1D nanostructures has been presented. All of the bare samples exhibited superhydrophilic behavior, whereas hierarchical Au/Pd nanostructure-coated 3C-SiC nanorod samples grown using Au and Ni thin-film catalysts exhibited hydrophobic and superhydrophobic behavior, respectively. As the better results were obtained for Ni thin-film catalysts in terms of growth density and high water contact angle (WCA ≈ 160°), therefore, the growth temperature, as well as the growth time-dependent wetting behavior, was also studied. It was found that the WCA increased as the growth time and temperature increased because of the increase in the growth density, and it finally reached to an optimum value at the growth temperature of 1200 °C and the growth time of 1 h. Furthermore, their wetting behavior was studied by using a variety of high surface tension (water, milk, tea, and glycerin) and low surface tension (organic liquids such as n-hexane, ethanol, etc.) liquids. High surface tension liquids exhibited superhydrophobic behavior, whereas low surface tension liquids exhibited superhydrophilic behavior. Hence, these fabricated nanostructured surfaces can be exploited for oil-water separation, electrowetting, water harvesting, self-cleaning, lab on a chip, and micro-/nanofluidic device applications.

Tailoring Materials with Specific Wettability in Biomedical Engineering

“…So far, the popular chemical methods for surface modification include sol–gel method, layer‐by‐layer technique, self‐assembly, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). [ 2 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 ] With decades of development, these methods have achieved great progress in fabricating various wettability materials in precise and controllable manner, paving the way for further application of these materials.…”

“…CVD is also a promising method to fabricate superwetting materials due to its capacity of constructing specific nanostructures in a controllable manner. [ 64 , 105 , 106 ] During the process, the substrates are usually deposited with the wettability layer by exposing to a gaseous precursor for chemical reaction. [ 105 ] In previous studies, CVD has been extensively utilized to fabricate superhydrophobic materials with different nanostructures, such as honeycomb‐like, pillar structured, and island‐shaped carbon nanotube patterns.…”

“…[ 64 ] Numerous efforts have been devoted to improving the stability of the resultant surfaces for further applications via choosing materials with excellent mechanical and chemical properties. [ 106 ]…”

Organic carbon dot coating for superhydrophobic aluminum alloy surfaces

“…4 By mimicking the lotus effect, the common way to produce superhydrophobic surfaces usually includes two key procedures, namely rough structure creation and subsequent modification by low-surface-energy materials. Thus, various techniques have been investigated to prepare superhydrophobic surfaces, including chemical etching, 5,6 laser processing, 7,8 layer-by-layer assembly, 9,10 the sol-gel method, 11,12 chemical vapor deposition, 13,14 and plasma processing. 15,16 Although these reported fabrication methods of superhydrophobic surfaces show excellent performance, toxic lowsurface-energy materials are always used, such as fluorine-containing compounds.…”

Template‐Synthesized Vertical Needle Array as Injection Platform for Microalgae

“…Increasingly diverse applications are taking advantage of this platforme. g. plasmonics, [1] sensors, [2] imaging, [3] energy conversion and storage, [4] electron-field emission, [5] and superhydrophobic surfaces [6] -to capitalize on the extremely high surface-to-volume ratio and/or the sharp tips of the NNAs, in combination with the wide selection of materials (e. g. metals, semiconductors, carbon, polymers, and composites) available to prepare the NNAs. [7] Perhaps one of the most exciting and emergent of these applications is the interrogation and manipulation of mammalian cells in large numbers.…”