Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Metal Surfaces for Anti-Icing Applications.

Several ways to produce superhydrophobic metal surfaces are presented in this work. Aluminum was chosen as the metal substrate due to its wide use in industry. The wettability of the produced surface was analyzed by bouncing drop experiments and the topography was analyzed by confocal microscopy. In addition, we show various methodologies to measure its durability and anti-icing properties. Superhydrophobic surfaces hold a special texture that must be preserved to keep their water-repellency. To fabricate durable surfaces, we followed two strategies to incorporate a resistant texture. The first strategy is a direct incorporation of roughness to the metal substrate by acid etching. After this surface texturization, the surface energy was decreased by silanization or fluoropolymer deposition. The second strategy is the growth of a ceria layer (after surface texturization) that should enhance the surface hardness and corrosion resistance. The surface energy was decreased with a stearic acid film. The durability of the superhydrophobic surfaces was examined by a particle impact test, mechanical wear by lateral abrasion, and UV-ozone resistance. The anti-icing properties were explored by studying the ability to repeal subcooled water, freezing delay, and ice adhesion.

Equilibrium contact angle or the most-stable contact angle?

It is well-established that the equilibrium contact angle in a thermodynamic framework is an "unattainable" contact angle. Instead, the most-stable contact angle obtained from mechanical stimuli of the system is indeed experimentally accessible. Monitoring the susceptibility of a sessile drop to a mechanical stimulus enables to identify the most stable drop configuration within the practical range of contact angle hysteresis. Two different stimuli may be used with sessile drops: mechanical vibration and tilting. The most stable drop against vibration should reveal the changeless contact angle but against the gravity force, it should reveal the highest resistance to slide down. After the corresponding mechanical stimulus, once the excited drop configuration is examined, the focus will be on the contact angle of the initial drop configuration. This methodology needs to map significantly the static drop configurations with different stable contact angles. The most-stable contact angle, together with the advancing and receding contact angles, completes the description of physically realizable configurations of a solid-liquid system. Since the most-stable contact angle is energetically significant, it may be used in the Wenzel, Cassie or Cassie-Baxter equations accordingly or for the surface energy evaluation.

Comparison of sessile drop and captive bubble methods on rough homogeneous surfaces: a numerical study.

Quasi-static experiments using sessile drops and captive bubbles are the most employed methods for measuring advancing and receding contact angles on real surfaces. These observable contact angles are the most easily accessible and reproducible. However, some properties of practical surfaces induce certain phenomena that cause a built-in uncertainty in the estimation of advancing and receding contact angles. These phenomena are well known in surface thermodynamics as stick-slip phenomena. Following the work of Marmur (Marmur, A. Colloids Surf., A 1998, 136, 209-215), where the stick-slip effects were studied with regard to sessile drops and captive bubbles on heterogeneous surfaces, we developed a novel extension of this study by adding the effects of roughness to both methods for contact angle measurement. We found that the symmetry between the surface roughness problem and the chemical heterogeneity problem breaks down for drops and bubbles subjected to stick-slip effects.