Superhydrophobic Flexible Silicone Rubber with Stable Performance, Anti-Icing, and Multilevel Rough Structure

• Published in: ACS applied polymer materials Vol. 5; no. 7; pp. 4729 - 4737
• Main Authors: He, Qiang, Ma, Yongwei, Wang, Xiaosen, Jia, Yangyang, Li, Kangshuai, Li, Anling
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 14-07-2023
• Subjects: silicone rubber; AlN; multilevel rough structure; superhydrophobic; anti-icing
• ISSN: 2637-6105; 2637-6105
• DOI: 10.1021/acsapm.3c00273

Superhydrophobic surfaces made of flexible materials have attracted much attention in the fields of wearable and flexible devices. In this work, an easy-to-process, fluorine-free, mechanically stable superhydrophobic surface with a multilayered rough structure was fabricated by the template/spraying method using silicone rubber with mechanical flexibility, electrical insulation, and bio-inertness. It can form an air layer between the droplet and the sample, reducing the contact area between the droplet and the sample, and its contact angle can reach 170° and the rolling angle can be 2.5°. After many bendings and twistings, the sample still maintains excellent superhydrophobic performance. The contact angle of the sample still exceeded 150° after 100 cm of abrasion on the sandpaper. Droplets can bounce many times on the sample surface without being stuck. Compared with the control surface, the time from the beginning of precooling to the complete freezing of droplets on the superhydrophobic surface was extended by a factor of 3.4 at −10 °C. Therefore, this research still has a bright application prospect in extreme environments.