Super-hydrophobic coating prepared by mechanical milling method

In mechanical milling, stearic acid can be used as a process control agent to reduce the interface energy between powders and contribute to the crushing of powder particulates. In this study, a super-hydrophobic coating with a contact angle of 153 degrees +/- 2 degrees was fabricated by ball milling a copper powder and stearic acid mixture onto an aluminum foil. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy demonstrated that stearic acid was successfully transferred to the surface of the copper powder, and scanning electron microscopy revealed that the structure of the super-hydrophobic coating consisted of irregular particles and sheets. The combined effect of low surface free energy and rough structure of the copper-based coating contributed to the super-hydrophobicity. The reported method is beneficial to preparing super-hydrophobic materials by the solid-state synthesis.