Deposition of superhydrophobic nanostructured Teflon-like coating using expanding plasma arc

A novel approach was used to grow nanostructured Teflon-like superhydrophobic coatings on stainless steel (SS). In this method Teflon tailings were pyrolyzed to generate fluorocarbon precursor molecules, and an expanding plasma arc (EPA) was used to polymerize these precursors to deposit Teflon-like coating. The coating shows super hydrophobic behavior with water contact angle (WCA) of 165°. The coating was observed to be uniform. It consists of nanostructured (∼80-200 nm) features, which were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. The chemical bond state of the film was determined by XPS and FTIR, which indicate the dominance of -CF₂ groups in the deposited coating. The combination of nanofeature induced surface roughness and the low surface energy imparted by Teflon-like coating is responsible for the observed superhydrophobic nature.