Cargando…

Capillary-Driven Water Transport by Contrast Wettability-Based Durable Surfaces

[Image: see text] Controlling water transport and management is crucial for continuous and reliable system operation in harsh weather conditions. Passive strategies based on nonwetting surfaces are desirable, but so far, the implementation of superhydrophobic coatings into real-world applications ha...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Dimitriadis, Theodoros, Stendardo, Luca, Tagliaro, Irene, Coclite, Anna Maria, Antonini, Carlo, Maitra, Tanmoy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Chemical Society 2023
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10251349/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37235501
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c03840
Descripción
Sumario:[Image: see text] Controlling water transport and management is crucial for continuous and reliable system operation in harsh weather conditions. Passive strategies based on nonwetting surfaces are desirable, but so far, the implementation of superhydrophobic coatings into real-world applications has been limited by durability issues and, in some cases, lack of compliance with environmental regulations. Inspired by surface patterning observed on living organisms, in this study we have developed durable surfaces based on contrast wettability for capillary-driven water transport and management. The surface fabrication process combines a hydrophobic coating with hard-anodized aluminum patterning, using a scalable femtosecond laser microtexturing technique. The concept targets heavy-duty engineering applications; particularly in aggressive weather conditions where corrosion is prevalent and typically the anodic aluminum oxide-based coating is used to protect the surface from corrosion, the concept has been validated on anodic aluminum oxide coated aluminum alloy substrates. Such substrates with contrast wettable characteristics show long-term durability in both natural and lab-based artificial UV and corrosion tests where superhydrophobic coatings tend to degrade.