Microstructure Design for Artificial Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Superhydrophobic surfaces are the surfaces that do not allow the droplets of liquid to spread and wet it. Ideally, the droplets remain almost spherical in shape and with a very small angle of tilt, slide away from the surface. This occurs due to very high contact angle. A perfectly spherical droplet would make 1800 angle of contact, but practically this high contact angle is never possible for a stable droplet. The surfaces that make contact angle (CA)>90o are said to be hydrophobic surfaces. If CA is greater than 150o , the surface is known as superhydrphobic surface. This property of the surface is termed as superhydrophobicity. In this paper, the surface morphology to be engineered is studied, which is governed by certain principles. Theories of Thomas Young [1], Wenzel [2] and Cassie-Baxter [3] are reviewed and effect of micro and nano level of roughness, producing hierarchical structures is analyzed. Subsequently, the designing of such super hydrophobic surfaces is attempted.