Superhydrophobic iron material surface with flower-like structures obtained by a facile self-assembled monolayer

A simple and economical route based on a K2CO3 mediated process was developed to synthesize three-dimensional (3D) flower-like Fe3O4 micro/nanoflakes on the surface of iron plates by a direct in-situ hydrothermal synthesis method. The prepared micro/nanoflakes were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. It was found that the width of the nanoflakes ranges from 50 to 100 nm, and the length of the flakes is about 3 mu m. The morphology of Fe3O4 nanostructures can be tuned from simple isolated nanoflakes to the ordered 3D flower-like shape by increasing the reaction temperature. The wettability of the surface with 3D flower-like micro/nanoflakes was changed from hydrophilicity to superhydrophobicity by chemical modification with vinyl tirethoxy-silane. The static contact angles for water on both of the modified surfaces were larger than 150A degrees, which was closely related to the chemical modification and hierarchical structure. Furthermore, the surfaces retained good superhydrophobic stability in long-term storage as well, which should be critical to the application of iron materials in engineering.