Organic/inorganic hybrid cerium oxide-based superhydrophobic surface with enhanced weather resistance and self-recovery

For a superhydrophobic coating, its limited durability has been a persistent issue that prevents its widespread usage in outdoor applications. Here, we propose a scalable, self-recoverable CeO₂/PDMS hybrid coating that harnesses synergetic benefits from hydrocarbon adsorption of rare earth oxides and hydrocarbon supply by a hydrocarbon-based polymer. It is demonstrated that this hybrid coating substantially outperforms other superhydrophobic surfaces in self-recovery of superhydrophobicity and weather resistance. The synergetic effect expedites the recovery of superhydrophobicity via a facilitated hydrocarbon adsorption: e.g., the self-recovery time of our coating was over 30 times less than that with CeO₂ nanoparticle-based coating after plasma treatment. Furthermore, our coating showed excellent weather resistance by (1) sustaining superhydrophobicity over 1 year without any deterioration in the outdoor environment and (2) surviving accelerated weathering tests. Finally, our coating was successfully applied to the outdoor electrical insulators, while exhibiting excellent self-recovery performance of superhydrophobicity even after exposure to 600 V of electrical stress in presence of conductive water droplets. We believe that our coating provides robust superhydrophobicity via a rapid self-recovery performance and can be applied to any type of substrates with complex geometry by a one-step spraying process, both of which would be crucial to the application of the superhydrophobic coating in a wide range of energy and environmental applications.