A novel preparation of polystyrene film with a superhydrophobic surface using a template method

Abstract

Inspired by the self-cleaning superhydrophobic taro leaf, a polystyrene (PS) film with superhydrophobic surface was obtained using a natural taro leaf as template. The water contact angle and the sliding angle of the superhydrophobic PS surface were 158° ± 1.6° and 3°, respectively. The PS surface was still superhydrophobic when contacting with black ink, fresh blood and even viscous glue water. SEM shows that the surface structure comprises many uniform papillae with the diameters ranging from 10 to 15 µm, which is similar to the surface structure of natural taro leaf. Such a special surface morphology may result in the superhydrophobic property.

Recent developments in polymeric superoleophobic surfaces

“…Generally speaking, the template process includes three steps: preparing a featured template master, molding the replica, and removing the templates. The templates can be natural surfaces, 34,57,[97][98][99][100][101] nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide, 69,102,103 micropatterned Si surfaces, or other artificial structured surfaces.…”

Plant leaves as templates for soft lithography

“…Because both vascularit [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and surface topography [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] can play important role for downstream applications, it was considered to be important to not only preserve the vascularity, but also the microscopic topography of the leaf. To reveal the accuracy of the replicated templates (1 : 20 ratio), a stoma of the back side of Tilia platyphyllos was chosen.…”

“…1 In engineering, biomimetic approaches have enabled the systematic study of naturederived nano-, micro-and macroscopic structures. Perhaps most famous is the discovery of superhydrophobicity mimicking 2 the nano-microscopic surface morphology of the natural-leaf templates, such as Strelitzia reginae, 3,4 taro, 5 lotus and rice leaves. 6,7 Superhydrophobic surfaces have been utilized in a myriad of technological applications including anti-wetting 8,9 bubble bursting, 10 organic-proong, 11 directional transportation, 12 antifogging, 13 superhydrophobicitysuperhydrophilicity transition, 14,15 self-cleaning, [16][17][18] selfrepairing interfaces.…”

Preparation and characterization of self-cleaning stable superhydrophobic linear low-density polyethylene

“…In nature, there are many natural superhydrophobic species such as sacred lotus leaves [3], taro leaves [4], and water strider's legs [5]. These surfaces are water-repellent in that water droplets roll off them at a small tilt angle (sliding angle), thereby removing contaminants from the surface [6] and thus showing a self-cleaning property.…”