Super-hydrophobicity on textiles – A review

Engineering interfaces with unique chemical, physical and mechanical properties has become a major branch of material science. Surfaces that combine a low surface energy with a high surface roughness, so called superhydrophobic surfaces, are ascribed the greatest potential in terms of their exceptional water repellent properties. Superhydrophobic surfaces have developed great deal of interest among researchers because of their unique ability to shed water off the surface. The two key elements that determine superhydrophobicity are surface energy and surface roughness. Superhydrophobicity is somewhat ambiguously applied to surfaces exhibiting a water contact angle of more than 150°. Surfaces with water and oil repellency have attracted increasing interest for their applications in diverse fields such as self-cleaning paint, sports and outdoor clothing, biomedical layers, integrated sensors, micro-fluidic channels. Such surfaces are usually achieved by the combination of surface geometrical structure and low surface energy chemical compositions.