Long‐lasting oil wettability patterns fabrication on superoleophobic surfaces by atmospheric pressure DBD plasma jet

Abstract

Water wettability patterns on superhydrophobic surfaces have been widely designed to meet requirements of many fields, such as lab-on-a-chip devices and bioengineering. However, these systems are easily invalidated by oily liquids. Therefore, oil wettability patterns, which have rarely been focused on, are urgently needed. In this work, the authors successfully control oil wettability of superoleophobic surface by an atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma jet. The results indicate that oil wettability is strongly influenced by treatment time, applied voltage and distance between plasma jet outlet and samples. They find that superoleophobic surfaces can be modified to be superoleophilic within 15 s, and that small holes can be etched on the surfaces under high applied voltages. Then, superoleophobic-superoleophilic patterns are prepared via selective plasma jet irradiation on superoleophobic surfaces, and both directional and antigravity transport of water and oily liquids are thus realised without external electrical or magnetic field. Additionally, ageing experiments show that the plasma-treated areas can maintain the induced wettability for >30 days storing under normal ambients, demonstrating superior time stability. The results presented here show the potential of atmospheric pressure DBD plasma jet for rapid oil wettability control and fabrication of long-time-effective oil wettability patterns.

Electrolytic colouring method for preparing robust coloured superhydrophobic surfaces with good corrosion resistance

“…Thanks to its excellent properties including lightness and high specific strength, aluminium and its alloys have been widely used in aerospace field and industries, and the preparation of SH aluminium surfaces is therefore of great importance [11][12][13][14]. To date, there have been a few research studies focusing on the fabrication of SH aluminium surfaces by various methods including chemical method [15][16][17], ultraviolet irradiation [18,19], plasma modification [20][21][22][23], and laser processing [24,25].…”