实验制备了不同氧化刻蚀程度的疏水表面,并进行相应的露点冷凝实验。实验结果显示,通过氧化刻蚀制备的疏水表面存在不同程度的表面不均匀性,受局部微观结构差异的影响,冷凝初始液滴优先在表面上未发生明显刻蚀的区域出现,而刻蚀部分基本不发生有效核化。两种不同刻蚀程度表面之间的对比实验表明,刻蚀程度差异导致的表面微观结构差异明显改变了表面冷凝液滴个数,通过调控表面的刻蚀程度,构造具有特定微观结构特征参数的结构表面,有可能在保证实现表面超疏水性能的同时对表面核化点密度进行调控和优化。
Experiments of moisture condensation on chemical textured surfaces were conducted to investigate the effect of microstructure on nucleation sites distribution. A simple chemical etching method was applied to fabricate super-hydrophobic surfaces on cooper plates. Various surface textures with different microstructure size/fraction were obtained by applying different etching reaction time. Initial nuclei were found to be prone to appear on the un-etched area, while no initial droplets present on the etched part. By applying the molecular clustering physical model, the relationship between microstructure and nucleation activity was discussed. It was also found that the microstructure size and its distribution have great effect on the nucleation sites distribution. It was suggested that the nucleation sites density can be adjusted by applying appropriate microstructure construction process, with the super-hydrophobic property maintained simultaneously.