Wettability tailored superhydrophobic and oil-infused slippery aluminium surface for improved anti-corrosion performance

Abstract

Inspired by the non-contact nature offered by the superhydrophobic surfaces of living creatures in nature, the superhydrophobic and slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) have been fabricated to meet the engineering problems including metal corrosion. In this research, we fabricate the hydrophobic, superhydrophobic, hydrophobic lubricant-infused surface (H-SLIPS), and superhydrophobic lubricant infused surface (SH-SLIPS) onto aluminium alloy surfaces and explored their anti-corrosion properties. The hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces are fabricated by hot-water treatment and silicon oil grafting onto the plain and superhydrophilic surface created by hot water treatment of the chemically etched aluminium surface, respectively. The corresponding SLIPS are fabricated by infusion of the silicone oil onto the prepared hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces. Although the superhydrophobic surface exhibits self-cleaning behavior, the SLIPS shows excellent self-healing properties. In addition, the H-SLIPS shows better lubricant layer stability compared to the SH-SLIPS. The corrosion resistive and electrochemical impedance studies illustrate that H-SLIPS surfaces exhibit excellent anti-corrosive properties as compared to other substrates and show long-term performance, even after 30 days. Thus, the study illustrates that H-SLIPS performs better and the infused oil stability is a critical factor for applications like anti-corrosion properties.