Superhydrophobic pillar arrays, which can generate the droplet pancake bouncing phenomenon with reduced liquid-solid contact time, have huge application prospects in anti-icing of aircraft wings from freezing rain. However, the previously reported pillar arrays, suitable for obtaining pancake bouncing, have a diameter ≤100 μm and height-diameter ratio >10, which are difficult to fabricate over a large area. Here, we have systematically studied the influence of the dimension of the superhydrophobic pillar arrays on the bouncing dynamics of water droplets. We show that the typical pancake bouncing with 57.8% reduction in contact time with the surface was observed on the superhydrophobic pillar arrays with 1.05 mm diameter, 0.8 mm height, and 0.25 mm space. Such pillar arrays with millimeter diameter and <1 height-diameter ratio can be easily fabricated over large areas. Further, a simple replication-spraying method was developed for the large-area fabrication of the superhydrophobic pillar arrays to induce pancake bouncing. No sacrificial layer was needed to reduce the adhesion in the replication processes. Since the bouncing dynamics were rather sensitive to the space between the pillars, a method to control the contact time, bouncing shape, horizontal bouncing direction, and reversible switch between pancake bouncing and conventional bouncing was realized by adjusting the inclination angle of the shape memory polymer pillars.

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Superhydrophobic conical pillars have great industrial application potential in, for example, anti-icing of aircraft wings and protecting high voltage transmission lines from freezing rain because of their droplet pancake bouncing phenomenon which is recognized to furthest reduce the liquidsolid contact time. However, there are still no methods that can large-scale fabricate robust

Superhydrophobic filtrating materials have been widely developed for rapid removal or collection of oils from oil/water mixture due to the increasing water pollution caused by oil spills and oil-contaminated wastewater. However, poor reusability, superhydrophobic failure in harsh environments, and that only heavy oil or light oil was separated from water seriously restricted their practical application. Herein, superhydrophobic carbon fibers were first fabricated using a novel nickel electroplating for versatile oil/water separation with excellent reusability and high environmental stability. The interconnected nanometer-scale nickel grains formed on the micrometer-scale fibers and fluoroalkylsilane molecules enabled the fibers to be superhydrophobic with the water contact angle (CA) of ∼159.1° and superoleophilic with the oil CA of ∼0°. The nickel coating contributed to the improvement of the bonding strength, tensile strength, and oxidation resistance of the fibers. The as-prepared fibers could be applied for the separation of heavy or light oil/water mixtures with separation efficiencies above 99.1%, during which the oil content in the separated water all remained below 78 ppm. The fibers also realized the highly efficient separation of dichloromethane and various harsh environmental solutions such as hot water, acid, alkali, and salt. The superhydrophobicity of the fluorinated nickel-coated carbon fibers still remained even after 100 cycles of separation and 24 months of storage in air, demonstrating outstanding durability of the fibers. These novel superhydrophobic carbon fibers had promising potentials for versatile oil/water separation in practical applications.