Fabrication of durable superhydrophobic electrodeposited tin surfaces with tremella-like structure on copper substrate

A durable superhydrophobic tin surface with a water contact angle of 170° and a sliding angle of < 1° was fabricated on copper substrate via electrodeposition under magnetic stirring and followed by annealing treatment at 180 °C for 60 min. The resulting superhydrophobic tin surfaces shows a porous tremella-like morphology and the water drop can fully bounce as a balloon on such a surface, exhibiting excellent non-sticking property. The as-prepared superhydrophobic tin surfaces also display excellent properties of anticorrosion, self-cleaning, long-term stability and durability. The influences of magnetic stirring and electrodeposition time on the wetting properties were also investigated to understand the formation mechanism of the superhydrophobic tin surfaces. This sufficiently simple and inexpensive method may offer an effective strategy for fabricating superhydrophobic surfaces on various conductive engineering materials.