Fabrication of ZnO/epoxy resin superhydrophobic coating on AZ31 magnesium alloy

Superhydrophobic coatings have been applied in various fields because of their advantages such as self-cleaning, drag reduction, dustproof, anti-icing, corrosion resistant etc. However, in this study, a new idea imitating the process of growing grass was proposed to solve the low adhesion, weak wear resistance and poor corrosion resistance of the general superhydrophobic coatings: the ratio of epoxy resin to ZnO seeds were strictly controlled so that ZnO seeds are not completely coated. On this basis, a cluster-like ZnO coating composed of interdigitated ZnO rods was prepared. After modification with stearic acid, the coating exhibited superhydrophobic properties with a contact angle of 163 degrees and the coating showed excellent abrasion resistance and noticeable robustness. Due to the barrier from both epoxy resin/ZnO seeds and cluster-like ZnO, the coating performed excellent corrosion resistance. At the same time, the cluster-like ZnO/epoxy resin coating prepared like seeds rooting has good firmness and can be adapted to various harsh environments such as tape peeling, friction between objects, etc., which can expand the application of the superhydrophobic coatings.