Superhydrophobic surfaces: From natural to biomimetic to functional

Nature is the creation of aesthetic functional systems, in which many natural materials have vagarious structures. Inspired from nature, such as lotus leaf, butterfly’ wings, showing excellent superhydrophobicity, scientists have recently fabricated a lot of biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces by virtue of various smart and easy routes. Whilst, many examples, such as lotus effect, clearly tell us that biomimicry is dissimilar to a simple copying or duplicating of biological structures. In this feature article, we review the recent studies in both natural superhydrophobic surfaces and biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces, and highlight some of the recent advances in the last four years, including the various smart routes to construct rough surfaces, and a lot of chemical modifications which lead to superhydrophobicity. We also review their functions and applications to date. Finally, the promising routes from biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces in the next are proposed.

Graphical abstractInspired from nature, such as lotus leaf, showing excellent superhydrophobicity, a lot of biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces were recently fabricated by means of various smart and easy routes, such as wet chemical reaction, self-assembly, electrospinning. At the same time, many examples, such as lotus effect, clearly tell us that biomimicry is dissimilar to a simple copying or duplicating of biological structures. This review highlighted some of the recent advances in recent years, especially in last four years, on superhydrophobic surfaces, from natural to biomimetic surfaces and their functions. We also proposed the promising routes from biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces in the further.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (80 K)Download as PowerPoint slideResearch highlights► The state of the art on superhydrophobic surfaces. ► Lessons from nature to biomimetic surfaces. ► From multiple functions to applications. ► Future direction on biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces. ► Work as nature, do as nature and produce as nature.