About
PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-0873
Generation of superhydrophobic surfaces by exposure of materials to laser beams
Nanoscience and nanotechnology research is strongly encouraged and developed nowadays due to its positive impact on the development of new areas such as nano-biology, nano-electronics, nano-photonics and nano-fluidics. The requirements of these new scientific domains have prompted the emergence of innovative techniques conceived to obtain structures with dimensions under micrometer range. Recently, superhydrophobic surfaces, for which the water contact angle is higher than 150° and sliding angle less than 10°, have received attention due to the many potential applications ranging from biological to industrial processes and usable even in daily life.
Many living beings in nature, including the lotus leaf, rice leaf, butterflying wing and water strider legs exhibit excellent superhydrophobicity. Such functionalized surfaces possess several unique beneficial properties, i.e. extreme water repellency, self-healing, self-cleaning, anti-bacteria, anti-corrosion, enhanced heat transfer, drag reduction and improved corrosion resistance.
The purpose and in the same time the novelty of the project is to design and realize an innovative, flexible and low cost system for producing of patterned superhydrophobic metallic surfaces by nanosecond laser ablation. The main goal of this patterned superhydrophobic metallic surfaces is to obtain a fingerprint device to be used on polymeric materials such as: polydimethylsiloxane-PDMS; polyethylene terephthalate-PET, synthetic latex polymers, polyvinyl chloride-PVC material. It should be mentioned that the polymeric structures have the same properties as those of the metal pattern and are used in a large number of remarkable applications, in biology, food industry, marine industry and textile industry.
Some of its innovative applications are to create superhydrophobic surgical gloves, superhydrophobic metallic surfaces for naval industry and also superhydrophobic food packaging for preventing COVID-19 spreading!