Construction of superhydrophobic surfaces via dual-scale modified particles and digital light processing 3D printing techniques

This article reports a method of Construction of superhydrophobic surfaces via digital light processing (DLP) and a low-cost, clean, and non-fluoride calcium sulfate particle (CSP) modification method with stearyl chloride. Modified micron-scale CSP and nano-scale hydrophobic fumed silica (HFS) were added into photocurable resin as fillers to prepare 3D printing ink. Relying on the manufacturing features of DLP 3D printing layer-by-layer curing and layer-by-layer stacking. The nano-scale HFS and micro-scale CSP are uniformly assembled to the surface and form a superhydrophobic layer with a dual-scale structure, so 3D objects with superhydrophobic surfaces were successfully prepared. The contact angle (CA) of superhydrophobic surfaces reached 157°, and the sliding angle (SA) reached 2.64°. Relying on the advantages of high precision of DLP 3D printing technology, different 3D samples were printed, whose surfaces also exhibited excellent superhydrophobic, which makes 3D objects expected to be applied in the fields of liquid transportation, micro-reactor, etc.