Superhydrophobic inorganic–organic composite coatings with hybrid micro‐nano binary structure on copper

Superhydrophobic surface of inorganic–organic composite coating with mechanical durability was fabricated via the combination of electroless galvanic deposition and crystal growth technique. Silver with dendritic morphologies was prepared on copper surface by electroless galvanic deposition. Stearic acid as a third phase was introduced to modify the morphology of the silver coatings. Fabrication of the inorganic–organic composite coatings improved effectively the mechanical durability and the hydrophobicity of silver coating. The hierarchical roughness features of the inorganic–organic composite coatings were investigated with scanning electron microscopy. The hydrophobicity of the composite coatings was characterized by contact‐angle goniometry. The inorganic–organic composite coatings consist of the petal‐like morphologies of stearic acid and the dendritic morphologies of silver. The hybrid hierarchical structure of the composite coatings shows a positive effect on the hydrophobicity and the mechanical durability. The contact angle of the superhydrophobic surfaces reached up to 162.6°.