Robust superhydrophobic wood surfaces with mechanical durability

Abstract Mechanical durability of superhydrophobic wood surfaces has significant practical meaning for civil engineering and architecture. The existing methods for fabricating superhydrophobic wood surfaces used complex processes and large amounts of chemical reagents, which bought a heavy burden to the environment. Herein, superhydrophobic wood surfaces with robust mechanical durability were fabricated by a simple, efficient and green method. Only a non-toxic chemical solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3) was used during the whole fabrication process, which was green and environmentally friendly. The wettability of the as-fabricated surface was studied. The effects of external loading, including cyclic tape peeling, sandpaper abrading, and knife scratching on the changes of superhydrophobicity and relevant mechanism were investigated. It is found that due to Cu layer worked as a binder of micro-nano dendritic structures, the hierarchical micro-nano dendritic structures kept unchanged and nanoparticles always existed on the as-fabricated surface under tape peeling, sandpaper abrading and severe knife scratching, making the surface display robust mechanical durability. It is expected that the superhydrophobic wood with mechanical durability has good application prospects in civil engineering and architecture field.