Molecular Architectonics‐Guided Fabrication of Superhydrophobic and Self‐Cleaning Materials

Abstract

Self‐cleaning surface coatings is ubiquitous with variety of products today including glass and ceramic tiles, anti‐fogging mirrors, paints, mortars, and concrete. The phenomenon of self‐cleaning is attributed to superhydrophobic surface capable of cleaning itself without any human intervention. The development of superhydrophobic surfaces has been inspired by the desire to mimic the nature viz., water repellent property of lotus leaves and the process is termed as lotus effect. A variety of chemical and physical methods have been reported to fabricate of rough surfaces with low‐surface‐energy coating like, molecular assembly processes, chemical vapor deposition, sol–gel method, and breath‐figure technique (BFT) among others. Among them, BFT offers simple solution processability, robustness, and excellent tunability of surface architecture at different length scales. In this progress report, molecular architectonics of small functional molecules and its application in fabricating selfcleaning materials and surfaces through simple solution processing techniques is described. In these bioinspired approaches, self‐assembly properties of small functional molecules at the molecular level can be controlled by conjugating with basic biomolecules or biomimetic units as functional auxiliaries and adapting suitable experimental techniques. Overall, this progress report demonstrates the progress in molecular architectonics‐based approaches to develop superhydrophobic surfaces with self‐cleaning applications.

Molecular Architectonics‐guided Design of Biomaterials

“…In the self‐assembly, coassembly and hierarchical assembly processes, the precision control of noncovalent interactions at molecular level defines the state‐of‐the‐art engineering of the molecular organization into functional architectures. The rational approach of custom design and engineering the molecular assemblies of modular functional molecules to construct well‐defined functional architectures is conceived as molecular architectonics [1–4] . This contemporary and advanced research theme relies on the meticulous manipulation of weak noncovalent interactions to engineer next‐generation molecular and material architectures, which manifests the deeper understanding of reciprocal molecular recognition between the assembly units.…”

“…This contemporary and advanced research theme relies on the meticulous manipulation of weak noncovalent interactions to engineer next‐generation molecular and material architectures, which manifests the deeper understanding of reciprocal molecular recognition between the assembly units. The scheme of molecular architectonics paved the way for the unambiguous design of molecular modules armed with biomolecular or biomimetic auxiliaries as building blocks to sculpt patterns, structures and more complex higher‐ordered architectures with emergent functional proprieties and applications [2–5] . The concepts of molecular recognition and host‐guest chemistry explicitly use the fundamental principles of noncovalent interactions driven molecular assembly, which further contributed significantly in advancing the field of molecular architectonics [5–10] .…”

Anisotropic Superhydrophobic Properties of Bioinspired Surfaces by Laser Ablation of Metal Substrate inside Water

“…Inspired by natural anisotropic superhydrophobic surfaces, engineers have developed a myriad of synthetic surfaces with precisely tuned physicochemical properties to transport water droplets and soft materials, control liquid spreading, provide directional adhesion, and exhibit directional friction. Anisotropic superhydrophobic surfaces have great prospects in the applications of self‐cleaning, [ 6 ] anti‐icing, [ 7–10 ] oil–water separations, [ 11 ] antifogging, [ 6 ] and friction reduction. [ 12–17 ] Zhang et al.…”

Recent Progress in the Fabrication and Characteristics of Self‐Repairing Superhydrophobic Surfaces

“…Superhydrophobic surface offer outstanding self-cleaning, [1][2][3][4][5] antifog, [6][7][8] anti-icing, [9,10] anticorrosion, [11,12] and oil-water separation [13][14][15] properties and are used in a wide variety of applications. Strategies for the fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces include etching, [16][17][18] template techniques, [19][20][21] sol-gel processing, [22,23] chemical vapor deposition (CVD), [24,25] electrostatic spinning, [26][27][28][29] spraying, [30,31] and self-assembly.…”