Antifouling Self-Cleaning Surfaces

Wettability is closely related to self-cleaning surfaces, which provides many important hints for antifouling. In nature, there exist many self-cleaning surfaces from land to the ocean after hundreds of millions of years’ evolution. These surfaces possess the properties of self-cleaning by minimizing the water and contaminant adhesion, or pinning spherical water droplets, collecting water droplets by integrating water vapor collection and droplet transportation, which have increasingly attracted attention of material scientists. In this chapter, we review many typical self-cleaning surfaces not only on land but also in the sea. We also conclude the principle of the self-cleaning mechanism and the hints for antifouling. On land, many self-cleaning surfaces are due to the superhydrophobicity which is related to the surface microstructures and the chemical constitution. The contamination and dust on the superhydrophobic surfaces can be readily washed away only with the flowing water. However, the superhydrophobic surfaces have a less self-cleaning effect under water, especially in the field of marine antifouling. While, the aquatic organisms also have the underwater self-cleaning capability. But different from the terrestrial organisms, they provide another self-cleaning approach to overcome the problems of fouling underwater, and also afford many hints in the anti-fouling field. The study and mimicking of the self-cleaning surfaces in nature should inspire the development of intelligent antifouling materials for applications in relative fields.