Superhydrophobic and Superoleophobic Polymeric Surfaces

An ideal super-repellent surface would be both superhydrophobic and superoleophobic. This chapter provides an overview on various approaches to obtain super-repellent polymeric surfaces and their potential applications in self-cleaning, anti-bioadhesion, anti-icing, oil/water separation, and so on. Contact angle (CA) values are conventionally used to describe the surface wettability of a solid. When the probe liquid is water, a solid surface can be categorized as hydrophilic when the water contact angle (WCA) is less than 90° or as hydrophobic when WCA is >90°. Various approaches are described in the chapter to obtain super-repellent surface. Some of the approaches include template-replicating method, LbL deposition, plasma treatment, electrospinning, and electrochemical polymerization. Polymer based super-repellent surfaces may hold great promise for future practical applications due to their intrinsic advantages including (large-scale) processability, flexibility, variation in material properties from molecular design, and low cost.