Highly Floatable Superhydrophobic Metallic Assembly for Aquatic Applications

• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b15540
• Publication Date: 2019-11-06T12:23:10Z
• Authors: Zhibing Zhan; Mohamed ElKabbash; JinLuo Cheng; Jihua Zhang; Subhash Singh; Chunlei Guo
• Keywords: Float (project management); Abrasion (mechanical); Hillock

Water-repellent superhydrophobic (SH) surfaces promise a wide range of applications, from increased buoyancy to drag reduction, but their practical use is limited. This comes the fact that an SH surface will start lose its efficiency once it forced into water or damaged by mechanical abrasion. Here, we circumvent these two most challenging obstacles and demonstrate highly floatable multifaced metallic assembly inspired diving bell spiders fire ant assemblies. We study optimize, both theoretically experimentally, floating properties design. The shows unprecedented ability; can float back even after being submerge under for months. More strikingly, maintains ability severe damage piercing in stark contrast conventional watercrafts aquatic devices. potential ranges devices electronic equipment protection ships vessels.