Robust dendritic Ag-Fe₂O₃/Fe surfaces with exquisite catalytic properties

In this work, a facile approach was developed for producing stable Ag-Fe₂O₃/Fe superhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) with dendritic structures. The hierarchical structures were fabricated on iron substrates through etching in a hydrochloric acid aqueous solution and a simple replacement deposition process was carried out without any organic modification, followed by annealing. The contact angle can reach 164 ± 1° and the sliding angle is almost 2 ± 1°. By comparison, the catalytic properties of the hydrophilic sample and SHS were examined. The SHS exhibited excellent catalytic performance. The rate constant of SHS was 3.00 × 10^-3 s^-1, which was about three times higher than that of the hydrophilic sample without annealing, and the degradation rate was maintained above 90% after ten recycles. The experimental results showed that the as-prepared SHSs exhibited excellent catalytic, self-cleaning, anti-corrosion, and anti-icing properties.