Fabrication and characterization of stable super hydrophobic cupric oxide films

Cupric oxide films with a new hierarchical architecture consisting of nanowires and nanoflowers were fabricated on copper substrate via an oxidation-dehydration process. Stable superhydrophobic CuO surface was obtained by modifing CuO films with perfluorooctyltrichlorosilane. The surface morphology and camposition were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The results show that the modified CuO films exhibited the superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle (CA) of about 156.3°, as well as a small sliding angle (SA) of about 2°. The special hierarchical structure, along with the low surface energy leads to high superhydrophobicity of the surface.