Super Antiwetting Surfaces for Mitigating Drag-Out of Deep Eutectic Solvents

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Surface Chemistry
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) exhibit high viscosity, leading to significant residue formation and material loss during transfer processes.
• Existing methods to mitigate DES residue issues are limited, presenting a challenge in their practical application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and fabricate a super antiwetting surface, termed super-DES-phobic, to address the challenges posed by viscous DESs.
• To investigate the properties and potential applications of this novel super-DES-phobic surface.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a super-DES-phobic surface using a facile coating technique with hierarchical silver dendrites on a copper foam substrate.
• Characterization of the surface's dual-roughness properties and evaluation of its performance in repelling DESs under various conditions (elevated temperature, impact).

Main Results:

• Stable super-DES-phobicity (DES contact angle > 150°) was achieved on the fabricated surface.
• The surface effectively repelled DESs and their solutions at temperatures up to 120 °C and resisted droplet impact.
• The super-DES-phobic surface demonstrated the ability to delay DES freezing and reduce the adhesion of frozen DESs.
• The surface was successfully utilized for accurate DES density gauging using small droplets (∼2 μL).

Conclusions:

• The developed super-DES-phobic surface offers a robust solution to the problem of DES residue and associated losses.
• This surface exhibits promising potential for applications in self-cleaning and antifreezing technologies involving DESs.