AVS 64th International Symposium & Exhibition
    MEMS and NEMS Group Tuesday Sessions
       Session MN+BI+EM+SS+TR-TuM

Paper MN+BI+EM+SS+TR-TuM13
Sustainable Thermoregeneration of Plastrons on Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 12:00 pm, Room 24

Session: Microelectromechanics: Relays to RF/Surfaces in Micro- and Nano- Systems
Presenter: Tomer Simovich, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Authors: T. Simovich, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
J. Arnott, The University of Melbourne, Australia
A. Rosenhahn, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
R.N. Lamb, Canadian Light Source, Canada
Correspondent: Click to Email
A popular and desirable function of superhydrophobic coatings is their remarkable ability to retain an entrapped layer of air, called a plastron, when submerged underwater. The drawback is that the air layer is short lived due to solvation into the surrounding liquid. Liquid gas extraction has been explored for the purpose of respiration through oxygen filtering or generation via chemical reaction. Manipulating solubility through temperature has been attempted but due to its inefficiencies has not been developed further into functioning technologies. This paper introduces a novel method of extracting gas from water to generate enough air to permanently stabilize a plastron on superhydrophobic surfaces for sustained anti-fouling, rust resistance and drag reduction abilities. This method involves locally heating the liquid surrounding a superhydrophobic coating, reducing gas solubility causing the gas to migrate to the liquid-air interface. Due to the low surface energy of superhydrophobic coatings, nucleation of supersaturated gasses occurs preferentially at the coating interface, thereby replenishing the plastron. This requires a relatively low energy input, due to the small volume of water required to be locally heated combined with the small temperature differential induced between substrate and liquid. This process may be more environmentally sustainable in comparison to competing methods. With a constant supply of equilibrated water and minimal energy input, the plastron can survive indefinitely without need for the mechanical application of additional gas.