Omniphobic Spray-Coating (RSC Asv)

N. K. Neelakantan, P. B. Weisensee, J. W. Overcash, E. J. Torrealba, W. P. King, K. S. Suslick, “Spray-Casting of Omniphobic ZnO Coatings”, RSC Advances 5 (2015) 69243 – 69250

In recent years, the design of highly liquid-repellent surfaces has received great attention. Here, we report a facile method of creating a surface that repels both water and oils; using simple spray-coating, a hierarchically rough ZnO–PDMS composite can be applied to a variety of substrates that serves as a nanostructured surface for further modification. We applied an overcoating of either a fluoropolymer (Teflon AF) or perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane to fabricate low energy surfaces that repel water and oil for a
variety of potential uses. The resultant surfaces are superomniphobic, have static contact angles of >140
for droplets of both liquids, and have low sliding angles for both water and oil droplets: <5
for water and <20
for oil.