Phys.org December 12, 2024 While the accessible pores render an enormous variety of functionalities to the bulk of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), the outer surfaces exposed by these crystalline materials also offer unique characteristics not available when using conventional substrates. An international team of researchers (Germany, India) fabricated superhydrophobic substrates with static water contact angles over 160° by grafting hydrocarbon chains to well-defined MOF thin films (SURMOFs) prepared using layer-by-layer methods. A detailed theoretical modelling of the hydrocarbon chains grafted on the outer SURMOF surface with well-defined spacing between anchoring points revealed that the grafted hydrocarbon chains behaved similarly to polymer […]
Tag Archives: Water repellant material
Penguin feathers may be secret to effective anti-icing technology
Phys.org October 24, 2022 The body feathers of perpetually ice-free penguins are very good natural examples of anti-icing surfaces, which use two different mitigation strategies for the two disparate problems – water adhesion and ice adhesion. Researchers in Canada constructed the form of the feather’s wire-like structure and decorated it with superimposed nanogrooves by laser micromachining fine woven wire cloths. Post-processing techniques also allowed them to isolate the role of surface chemistry by creating both hydrophilic and hydrophobic versions of the synthetic anti-icing surfaces. Their results showed that water-shedding and ice-shedding characteristics are indeed derived from different physical functions of […]