Fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces on stainless steel mesh substrates via electro-brush flow plating technology

摘要

Recently, superhydrophobic surface has attracted increasing attention because of its possible application prospect on self-cleaning, anti-icing, drag-reduction and corrosion-resistance. Although the main route to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces is first constructing the micro-structures and then lowering the surface energy, the lack of effective method to large-area fabricate suitable micro-structures limits its application. Here, we developed an electro-brush flow plating method to high-effectively fabricate micro-structures and superhydrophobic surfaces on stainless steel mesh substrate. The processing parameters including the plating voltage, plating time and brush speed which have significant influences on the superhydrophobicity of substrate were discussed. Under the proper parameters, the water contact angle on the prepared surface reaches to 158° and the water sliding angle is less than 10°. The SEM and XRD results demonstrate that the wires of superhydrophobic mesh were coated with micro/nano hierarchical Ni structures which trapped enough air to support water droplet and provide high mechanical robustness because of the high hardness of the coating.