Highly stable superhydrophobic surfaces under flow conditions

Abstract

We synthesized hydrophobic anodic aluminum oxide nanostructures with pore diameters of 35, 50, 65, and 80 nm directly on quartz crystal microresonators, and the stability of the resulting superhydrophobicity was investigated under flow conditions by measuring changes in the resonance frequency and dissipation factor. When the quartz substrates were immersed in water, their hydrophobic surfaces did not wet due to the presence of an air interlayer. The air interlayer was gradually replaced by water over time, which caused decreases in the resonance frequency (i.e., increases in mass) and increases in the dissipation factor (i.e., increases in viscous damping). Although the water contact angles of the nanostructures increased with increasing pore size, the stability of their superhydrophobicity increased with decreasing pore size under both static conditions (without flow) and dynamic conditions (with flow); this increase can be attributed to an increase in the solid surface area that interacts with the air layer above the nanopores as the pore size decreases. Further, the effects of increasing the flow rate on the stability of the superhydrophobicity were quantitatively determined.