Bioinspired interfacial engineering of multiscale micro/nano-structured surfaces with robust superhydrophobic and tunable adhesion

Abstract

Creating superhydrophobic surfaces with varying liquid–solid adhesion holds significant applications in waterproofing, lab-on-chip, and self-cleaning. Biological superwetting surfaces, such as lotus leaf and rose petal, leverage hierarchical micro/nanoscale surface structures together with low-surface-energy chemicals, to synergistically tune their adhesion. However, existing synthetic technologies encounter great difficulty in constructing sophisticated micro/nano architectures for robust, adhesive superhydrophobic surfaces, especially on fabrics. Here, we present a bioinspired interfacial engineering methodology of “artificial papillae + glue” which allows the construction of tunable multiscale micro/nano structures for superhydrophobic fabrics with mechanical robustness (mechanical friction up to 100 cycles) and varying adhesion (69.4–216.5 µN). For our methodology, artificial papillae with tunable 3D topological architectures, fluorinated alky chains, and hydrosilylation-reactive C = C groups, are designed and synthesized as the robust anchoring groups to different concentrations of polydimethylsioxane (PDMS) glue and applied to hydrophilic substrates. The PDMS-dominated surfaces form microwrinkles with high adhesion, ideal for microdroplet manipulation and hemostasis, meanwhile artificial papillae-dominated surfaces offer low adhesion and excellent self-cleaning properties. This biomimetic “artificial papillae + glue” strategy enables the creation of tunable multi-scale micro/nanostructures for robust adhesive antiwetting interfaces, offering promising applications in droplet manipulation, hemostasis, and beyond.