8 ms·
Laser-generated surface structures create extremely water-repellent metals
- SixSigma 12y agoA great achievement. I would like to have seen it dipped. Also demonstrated with contaminated water of some kind, maybe flour & water paste. He states it would not degrade, but surely expansion and contraction will take a toll on nanoscale etchings, as well as abrasion and acid content of airborne contaminants.
- jholman 12y agoYeah, I'm very curious about the degradation behaviour, especially abrasion.
- tonylemesmer 12y agoThe surface, upon visual inspection in the video looks rough. What happens say if the surface is regularly in contact with skin during a practical application? Does the skin get abraded into the microstructure of the material surface and degrade its hydrophobic properties? Looks amazing though watching the water spread out and spring back that much. Simply incredible.
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- jtchang 12y agoThis is awesome! I look forward to my teflon pans that I don't have to throw away after 6 months because they stop working.
- lumpypua 12y agoSame! But for now, baby the shit out of them. Buy one that gets legit amazon reviews for your next one. Hand wash it and mayyybe use a sponge when washing it. Only use wooden, plastic or silicone utensils in it. If somebody cleans it with a scrubby pad or uses a metal spatula, they get shot/buy you your next pan. :) I did 2 years on my most recent nonstick pan until my roommate cleaned it with a scrubby pad.
- ScottBurson 12y agoAvoid Teflon -- it leaches toxic PFOA into food. The ceramic nonstick pans work about as well, and are safe.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoWhat is your source on that? "Non-stick cookware is not a significant source of exposure." is what cancer.org [0] has to say about Telon and PFOA. [0] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid--pfoa http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a...
- ScottBurson 12y agoPersonal experience. A few years ago my prostate enlarged relatively suddenly, to the point of making urination difficult. My doctor had no idea why, but it eventually dawned on me that I had recently been eating a lot of scrambled eggs, scrambled in a Teflon-coated skillet. I replaced it with a ceramic nonstick skillet, and the problem went away. If you want absolute proof an anecdote won't satisfy you, but it's plenty of evidence for me. Look at the cost/risk calculation. The cost of a ceramic pan is on the order of $35; the cost of getting cancer is potentially quite large. There doesn't have to be a very large probability that Teflon causes cancer before it's not worth taking the chance.
- DanBC 12y agoWhat if ceramic pans cause cancer?
- canberroid 12y agoI wonder what sort of metals this process would work with effectively and whether surfaces can be reprocessed over time.
- jcrites 12y agoDo hydrophobic materials interact differently with gases as well? What would the air flow be like over a wing made out of a superhydrophobic material like this? Would it facilitate or disrupt airflow, or not matter?
- jacquesm 12y agoYes, that's been done: http://www.lufthansa-technik.com/famos http://www.lufthansa-technik.com/famos See sharkskin bit above.
- jcrites 12y agoI would love to learn more about the structure of the patterns etched into the metals. I took a quick look through the links from the article, but didn't find anything with meat. Does anyone have a link? I'd love to see it under a microscope, or see a visualization of the pattern. Is the strategy to maximize the surface area of an existing hydrophobic material?
- McKayDavis 12y agoLink to the paper [1] (with microscopy images) in the Journal of Applied Physics leads the 3rd paragraph of the article. [1] http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/3/10.1063/1.4905616 http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/3/10.10...
- darkmighty 12y agoFantastic, thank you
- venomsnake 12y agoAm I twisted when I first thought of non stick, non coated cookware when I saw the title. Great achievement.
- hkmurakami 12y agoWouldn't a hydrophobic surface attract oils? (maybe that's only the case for chemical hydrophobicity rather than structural)
- yihyeh 12y agoThis specifically repel water, or can it repel any liquid?
- kendallpark 12y agoGenerally, hydrophobic substances won't repel nonpolar substances such as oil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobic_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobic_effect
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- acd 12y agoI'm looking for superhydrophobic materials for my next car so its easier to keep clean.
- omegant 12y agoHonest question, would steel rust just by liquid water, or vapor and oxigen in the air will make it rust eventually?
- yourapostasy 12y agoWater vapor in the form of humidity is sufficient to initiate the rusting process. Most questions along this line are addressed on this page: https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=485 https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=485 Note that if you try to avoid the formation of rust by submerging your steel in water, thinking that will remove the oxidative air component, you run into corrosion issues unless you are submerging in a tank of constantly refreshed distilled water.
- kozlinov 12y agoAwesome. Looking forward for a finally lipophobic smartphone. In fact, in the future all surfaces of consumer electronics and other stuff should be superhydrophobic.
- wklauss 12y agoI think there are far better ways to do this on a small object of limited lifespan like a smartphone, not to mention that metal is not an ideal way to make a smartphone. You can use it some surfaces, but at some point you'll need plastic and glass.
- concerned_user 12y agoWon't it create issues with the smartphone slipping out of your hands way too easily?
- kozlinov 12y agoNope.
- jacquesm 12y agoShark skin has similar properties. The sharks use it for super efficient swimming, it reduces their drag considerably. http://www.asknature.org/strategy/038caf2e453c09b3016465cc6ca93605 http://www.asknature.org/strategy/038caf2e453c09b3016465cc6c... Car wash companies will hate this stuff, and wouldn't it be nice if it could be etched into windshields, no more wipers!
- imaginenore 12y agoYou still need to wash off the dust, so some sort of wipers are needed still. When swimming, the drag is pretty minor, most of your energy is spent on the displacement of water. That's true with fish, and with ships and boats.
- thret 12y ago"As the water bounces off the super-hydrophobic surfaces, it also collects dust particles and takes them along for the ride... Better yet, it remains completely dry."
- dekhn 12y agolotus effect
- scott_karana 12y agoThat requires a sufficient water-to-dust ratio. Driving jeeps in the Congo, or having dust blown up from dunes in a sudden gust, will require wipers. Not to mention pollen.
- soperj 12y agoCouldn't you still have sprayers that would help with this?
- scott_karana 12y agoHmm, that's not a bad idea! Current sprayers would obviously be inefficient because they rely on wipers to spread fluid widely over the windshield, but I'm sure that could be changed. (Such as a top pressure-rail for dispensation)
- jader201 12y agoI wanted to know more about the practical applications of the syperhydrophilic metals (the counter-technology of the one discussed here), and found this video [1] with Chunlei informative. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDPsWd6Yqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDPsWd6Yqw
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- kendallpark 12y agoI think this could have a great impact on water vessels. I wonder if they can do the same sort of thing on a fiberglass surface... It's a good thing the Olympics banned those full-body swimsuits. This would be the next million-dollar suit.
- contingencies 12y agoMy thoughts exactly... maybe because I'm reading Sail Performance at the moment! Weight, durability and shapability would be important properties vs. the nominal reduction in drag, though.
- wheaties 12y agoAnd Chunlei does it again. I was an undergraduate when he arrived and helped set up the first UHV chamber for his initial tests. Let me just say that not only is he brilliant but he is also about as down to earth a person as you could ever meet. He seriously has no ego, is easy going and has an internal drive that's unbelievable. If he ever wants to start a company, whomever he reaches out to, fund him.
- Pronounce 12y agoI was hoping to see the drop size decreased to the point where it no longer was repelled.
- mapt 12y agoHydrophobicity alone is only so useful. Teflon became a thing because it's both hydrophobic and lipophobic. There are lots of hydrophobic surfaces that work very well until you get dirt, finger oils, soap, or just about anything that isn't water-soluble on them. There may also be an issue here with friction damage. Hopefully the technique here can be adapted to practical products.
- darkmighty 12y agoThe technique is extremely flexible. I'm sure they'll figure out an etching pattern that is both extremely lipophobic and hydrophobic. Only hydrophobia has many applications already.
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