Facile Preparation of Robust Superamphiphobic Surface by Electrochemical Etching Process Based on the SiC/Al Composites

Abstract

Preparation of robust superamphiphobic surface has been still one of research focuses in the surface engineering field. In this study, the SiC/Al composite, an advanced material preferentially used in the industries of microelectronics, aerospace and defense, etc., was innovatively selected as the substrate material to prepare the surfaces with extreme anti-wettability. Electrochemical etching was applied to process the SiC/Al composites and the effects of process parameters on the surface wettability were discussed. The characteristics of resistance to thermal shock of the processed surface with extreme anti-wettability were specially evaluated. It was found that, after processed by electrochemical etching and subsequent boiling water treatment, the modified SiC/Al composites showed an excellent superamphiphobicity to water and some low surface energy liquids including olive oil, soybean oil and hexadecane, with a water contact angle of up to 161.2° and a water sliding angle of down to 2°. In addition, the thermal shock experiments showed that the achieved superhydrophobic and superamphiphobic surfaces of the SiC/Al composites both had a significantly great resistance to thermal shocks and high temperature, due mainly to the matrix microstructures of the SiC/Al composites with outstanding mechanical and thermal properties together with the possible good thermal matching property between the low surface energy coating and the SiC particles. The superamphiphobic surfaces with robustly mechanical and outstanding resistance to thermal-shock properties can be facilely prepared by electrochemical etching process based on the SiC/Al composites.