Self-cleaning surface using nanostructured materials

Abstract

The amazing water repellence of many biological surfaces, in particular plant leaves, has received recently great interest. The ability of these surfaces to make water bead off completely and there by wash off contamination very effectively has been turned “lotus effect” or “self-cleaning”. Two of the possible applications of self-cleaning surface are microfluidic devices in biology and self-cleaning windows. By using nanotechnology such surface can be fabricated artificially. In this project super-hydrophobic (water repellent) surface, with water contact angle greater than 150 degree and hydrophobic surface, with water contact angle smaller than 150 degree have been developed. We have also investigated various approaches to control the surface wettability by thermal, UV irradiation and pH effects.