One-Step Fabrication of Robust Superhydrophobic Steel Surfaces with Mechanical Durability, Thermal Stability, and Anti-icing Function

Superhydrophobic metallic materials have drawn broad research interest because of promising applications in various fields. The mechanical stability of superhydrophobic surfaces is currently a major concern limiting their practical applications. Herein, we developed a simple method to fabricate robust superhydrophobic surfaces on stainless steel via direct ultrafast laser microprocessing. Of note is that the fabricated superhydrophobic surfaces can withstand mechanical abrasion against an 800 grit SiC sandpaper for 2.3 m at an applied pressure of 5.5 kPa without losing superhydrophobicity. It is proposed that the robust superhydrophobicity may be attributable to the formation of unique hierarchical micro-/nanostructures and a nonpolar carbon layer on the surface. The hierarchical structures are composed of laser-created micropillars and ablation-induced nanoparticles. The fabricated surfaces exhibit good thermal stability and still show superhydrophobicity after thermal treatment at 100 °C for 120 min, which is related to the inorganic nature of metallic materials. An excellent anti-icing property is achieved on the fabricated surfaces with the water droplets on it retaining the liquid state for over 500 min at −8.5 ± 0.5 °C, which benefits from the obtained superhydrophobicity, based on classic nucleation theory and the heat transfer between the rough solid surface and water droplet. We envision that the presented method provides a facile and effective route to fabricate large-area superhydrophobic surfaces with robust mechanical stability and excellent anti-icing property.