From the paper
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/3/10.10...
it appears they have modeled the pattern after the lotus leaf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect
New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would not water (or any other solvent's) movement cause a scouring action that would remove contaminates and keep the surface clean?
I was wondering what would happen if you turned on a firehose and just slammed it for a good length of time...how durable it would be? If they're planning to use it on the surface of an airplane wing -- curious how durable the surface is.
I was actually thinking about using this on the surface of titanium on a catamaran.
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#23Better, non-gizmodo link: http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/superhydrophobic-metals-...
Here is what the actual pattern on the platinum looks like:
http://scitation.aip.org/docserver/fulltext/aip/journal/jap/...
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#24Making a hydrophobic urinal seems like an interesting prank.
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#25Making a hydrophobic urinal seems like an interesting prank.
On the 2nd floor of Wean Hall at CMU somebody has sprayed a small patch of hydrophobic coating on one of the urinals (I think it's the 2nd floor, but definitely it's floor 2, 4, or 5). The stream normally turns into a "sheet" falling down the back of the porcelain, except around the patch -- where it hops off and turns into a thousand little droplets that bounce merrily down to the drain. Unless the person who put it there keeps re-applying it, the coating has had an impressive lifespan (at least 1 year in a semi-public toilet). Anyway, if you happen to be in the area (and male) you can try it yourself.
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but if you dump something on it which has a grain size that's similar to the voids in the material, all bets are off. If the average void is 1um and you put 0.1um dust all over it, I would suspect that it would embed itself in there pretty nicely.
Or a liquid that's not repelled by the surface. What would happen if you just dumped a lot of washing up liquid on this nanosurface? How would you rinse it off? Watching the video I thought the thing with the teflon was a bit silly. After all if you wanted to think of something that won't hold water at an angle, wouldn't you think of ordinary glass rather than teflon?
Glass windows regularly hold water at a 90˚ angle and against interstate-speed winds.
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#27Making a hydrophobic urinal seems like an interesting prank.
On the 2nd floor of Wean Hall at CMU somebody has sprayed a small patch of hydrophobic coating on one of the urinals (I think it's the 2nd floor, but definitely it's floor 2, 4, or 5). The stream normally turns into a "sheet" falling down the back of the porcelain, except around the patch -- where it hops off and turns into a thousand little droplets that bounce merrily down to the drain. Unless the person who put it…
the coating has had an impressive lifespan
Probably isn't handled too much though.
Re: New metal is so hydrophobic it makes water bounce like magic
#28This is blogspam. Original source was discussed here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8921655
Thanks, we missed that one. Had the story not been discussed yesterday we would swap the url, but in this case we'll bury the post as a duplicate.