A facile and less-polluting electrochemical method to fabricate multifunctional superhydrophobic film on iron materials

Iron materials have the extremely widespread applications and they are common in all kinds of frame structures, such as iron tower. However, it is well known that ironwork is easy to rust. Besides, in cold environment the freezing rain adhered to the iron facility can also bring huge potential security problems. Herein, we present a modified electrochemical machining (ECM) method by applying a mixed aqueous solution of Na 2 MoO 4 and NaCl to fabricate superhydrophobic film on iron materials followed by fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) modification. The proposed ECM method can not only generate rough microstructures very rapidly even at low electrical parameters, but also reduce the pollution of the electrolyte by recycling the corrosion products. The sandpaper abrasion and knife scratch tests were utilized to demonstrate the mechanical strength of the obtained superhydrophobic surfaces. Good self-cleaning properties were also showed by using several kinds of contaminants and corrosive solutions. Furthermore, we demonstrated the good anti-fogging property by using atomizer and the anti-icing property by static and dynamic anti-icing tests in a cold environment to show the practical applications of the prepared film. We believe that the modified ECM method has broad application prospects.