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To maintain a hydrophobic surface, the head groups bind closely to the surface, while the hydrophobic micelles stretch far away from the surface. By varying the amount of SAM you coat on a substrate, one could vary the degree of hydrophobicity. Particular superhydrophobic SAMs have a hydrophobic head group binding to the substrate.
Superhydrophilicity refers to the phenomenon of excess hydrophilicity, or attraction to water; in superhydrophilic materials, the contact angle of water is equal to zero degrees. This effect was discovered in 1995 by the Research Institute of Toto Ltd. for titanium dioxide irradiated by sunlight .
In industry, super-hydrophobic coatings are used in ultra-dry surface applications. The coating can be sprayed onto objects to make them waterproof. The spray is anti-corrosive and anti-icing; has cleaning capabilities; and can be used to protect circuits and grids. Superhydrophobic coatings have important applications in maritime industry ...
The "photocatalytic" stage of the process breaks down the organic dirt on the glass using ultraviolet light and makes the glass superhydrophilic (normally glass is hydrophobic). During the following "superhydrophilic" stage, rain washes away the dirt, leaving almost no streaks, because water spreads evenly on superhydrophilic surfaces. [5]
Dew drop on a hydrophobic leaf surface Cutting a water droplet using a superhydrophobic knife on superhydrophobic surfaces Water drops on the hydrophobic surface of grass In chemistry , hydrophobicity is the chemical property of a molecule (called a hydrophobe ) that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water . [ 1 ]
Surfactants are absorbed onto the liquid–vapor, solid–liquid, and solid–vapor interfaces, which modify the wetting behavior of hydrophobic materials to reduce the free energy. When surfactants are absorbed onto a hydrophobic surface, the polar head groups face into the solution with the tail pointing outward.
This mechanism is very different than the aforementioned superhydrophobic surfaces. For superhydrophilic self-cleaning surfaces, cleaning occurs because water on the surface is able to spread out to a great degree (extremely low water contact angle) to get between any fouling debris and the surface to wash away the debris.
Cloth, treated to be hydrophobic, shows a high contact angle. The theoretical description of contact angle arises from the consideration of a thermodynamic equilibrium between the three phases: the liquid phase (L), the solid phase (S), and the gas or vapor phase (G) (which could be a mixture of ambient atmosphere and an equilibrium concentration of the liquid vapor).