Preparation of a bionic microtexture on X52 pipeline steels and its superhydrophobic behavior

Abstract

Abstract A superhydrophobic surface with the bionic microtexture was prepared successfully on X52 pipeline steel using the sandblasting roughening treatment, chemical etching and fluorination treatment composite methods. The pipeline steel surface was modified with (heptadecafluoro-1,1,2,2-tetradecyl)trimethoxysilane (HFTTMS). The effects of HCl concentration and the chemical etching time on the morphology of the pipeline steel surface and the wettability of the surface with distilled water were investigated. The results show that at certain HCl concentration, with the increase of the chemical etching time, the contact angles have a maximum value. At certain chemical etching time, the higher HCl concentration was, the severer the reaction between the pipeline steel surface and HCl solution was, and the surface roughness formed by the sandblasting roughening treatment decreased rapidly, resulting in the decrease of the contact angle. The sample sandblasted for 1.5 min and etched chemically for 1.5 h at 7 mol/L HCl can obtain the best surface fine structure. After the fluorination treatment, the biggest contact angle is 156.4°.