Uniting Superhydrophobic, Superoleophobic and Lubricating Fluid Infused Slippery Behavior on Copper Oxide Nano-structured Substrates

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how copper oxide nanostructures with different morphologies can be engineered to achieve superhydrophobic, superoleophobic, and slippery surfaces, with hierarchical cauliflower structures showing superior performance.

Contribution

The paper introduces a simple chemical bath deposition method to create copper oxide nanostructures with tunable morphologies that enhance surface repellency and slipperiness.

Findings

Hierarchical cauliflower nanostructures exhibit the best superoleophobicity with 149° contact angle for dodecane.

Silicone oil infusion results in low hysteresis (~2°) and tilt angle (~2°), indicating excellent slipperiness.

Hierarchical structures show improved stability and slipperiness compared to other morphologies.

Abstract

Copper oxide nanostructures with spherical (0D), needle (1D) and hierarchical cauliflower (3D) morphologies are used to demonstrate superhydrophobic, superoleophobic and slippery behavior. These nanostructures are synthesized on galvanized steel substrates using a simple chemical bath deposition method by tuning precursor concentration. Subsequent coating of low surface energy polymer, polydimethylsiloxane, results in superhydrophobicity with water contact angle ~160(2){\deg} and critical sliding angle ~2{\deg}. When functionalized with low-surface energy perfluoroalkyl silane, these surfaces display high repellency for low surface tension oils and hydrocarbons. Among them, the hierarchical cauliflower morphology exhibits better re-entrant structure thus show the best superoleophobicity with 149{\deg} contact angle for dodecane having surface tension 25.3 mNm-1. If these nanostructured substrates are infused with lubricant Silicone oil, they show excellent slippery behavior for water drops. Due to the lubricating nature of Silicone oil, the Silicone oil infused slippery surfaces (SOIS) show low contact angle hysteresis (~2{\deg}) and critical tilt angle (~2{\deg}). The hierarchical cauliflower nanostrcuture exhibit better slippery characteristics and stability compared to the other nanostructured surfaces.