Bioinspired directional structures for inhibiting wetting on super-melt-philic surfaces above 1200 °C

Over the past two decades, superhydrophobic surfaces that are easily created have aroused considerable attention for their superior performances in various applications at room temperature. Nowadays, there is a growing demand in special fields for the development of surfaces that can resist wetting by high-temperature molten droplets (>1200 °C) using facile design and fabrication strategies. Herein, bioinspired directional structures (BDSs) were prepared on Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) surfaces using femtosecond laser ablation. Benefiting from the anisotropic energy barriers, the BDSs featured with no additional modifiers showed a remarkable 552.2% increase in the contact angle of CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2 (CMAS) melt and a 70.1% reduction in the spreading area of CMAS at 1250 oC, compared with polished super-CMAS-melt-philic YSZ surfaces. Moreover, the BDSs demonstrated exceptional wetting inhibition even at 1400 °C, with an 848.5% increase in contact angle and a 67.9% decrease in spreading area. This work provides valuable insight and a facile preparation strategy for effectively inhibiting the wetting of molten droplets on super-melt-philic surfaces at extremely high temperatures.