Aerodynamic super-repellent surfaces

Abstract

Repelling liquid drops from engineering surfaces has attracted great attention in a variety of applications. To achieve efficient liquid shedding, delicate surface textures are often introduced to sustain air pockets at the liquid–solid interface. However, those surfaces are prone to suffer from mechanical failure, which may bring reliability issues and thus limits their applications. Here, inspired by the aerodynamic Leidenfrost effect, we present that impacting drops are directionally repelled from smooth surfaces supplied with an exogenous air layer. Our theoretical analysis reveals that the synchronized nonwetting and oblique bouncing behavior is attributed to the aerodynamic force arising from the air layer. The versatility and practicability of our approach allow for drop repellency without the aid of any surface wettability treatment and also avoid the consideration of mechanical stability issues, which thereby provides a promising candidate for the applications that necessitate liquid shedding, e.g., resolve the problem of tiny raindrop adhesion on the automobile side window during driving.