Fabrication and mechanical durability of superhydrophobic films on aluminum

• A superhydrophobic aluminum surface is created by using a facile sol–gel process.
• A hierarchically gel film is made by an 8% hydrazine solution at room temperature.
• The superhydrophobic surface is achieved by hydrophobizing step.
• The superhydrophobic film on aluminum shows strong mechanical durability.

A simple sol–gel process was developed in this paper to render superhydrophobic aluminum with mechanical durability. Scanning electron microscopy, FT IR spectroscopy and water contact-angle measurements were used to analyze the morphological features, chemical composition and wettability of prepared samples, respectively. Moreover, the mechanical durability of the superhydrophobic films on aluminum was evaluated in a ball-on-plate configuration.