Extreme tuning of wetting on 1D nanostructures: from a superhydrophilic to a perfect hydrophobic surface

A A Ali; A Haidar; O Polonskyi; F Faupel; H Abdul-Khaliq; M Veith; O C Aktas

doi:10.1039/c7nr05336c

Extreme tuning of wetting on 1D nanostructures: from a superhydrophilic to a perfect hydrophobic surface

Nanoscale. 2017 Oct 12;9(39):14814-14819. doi: 10.1039/c7nr05336c.

Authors

A A Ali¹, A Haidar, O Polonskyi, F Faupel, H Abdul-Khaliq, M Veith, O C Aktas

Affiliation

¹ INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Campus D2 2, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.

PMID: 28971205
DOI: 10.1039/c7nr05336c

Abstract

The tuning of wetting over an extreme range, from superhydrophilic to superhydrophobic, was demonstrated on 1D Al/Al₂O₃ nanostructures. While chaotic and tangled 1D Al/Al₂O₃ nanostructures exhibited complete wetting, they became water repellent (with a water contact angle (CA) ≥173°) after the infiltration of poly[bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethoxy)phosphazene] (PTFEP) solution. This simple strategy allows the achievement of two extreme wetting regimes, perfect wetting and non-wetting, without altering the nanostructured surface topography. The same surface was also found to exhibit repellency towards artificial blood and hexadecane.