Researchers Develop Durable Water Repellent Surfaces Using Rare Earth Metals

Water-repellent surfaces have wide applications in almost every industry. Currently hydrophobic materials are used to make water-repellent surfaces that prevent water from spreading over a surface. But these materials have a major drawback, most of them use thin polymer coating that degrades on heating and can be destroyed by wear. A team of researchers from MIT has found a solution to this problem by developing a new class of hydrophobic materials.
According to Kripa Varanasi, Associate Professor who led the team, durability is a big issue with hydrophobic materials and we have solved this issue. These ceramics are highly resistant to extreme temperature,but the interesting point here is that they tend to be hydrophillic (water-attracted) instead of hydrophobic. The team decided to try elements whose unique electronic structure might render the materials hydrophobic. Their search ended with rare earth elements, also known as lanthanide series elements in periodic table.
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Team used powder oxides of rare earth elements and made ceramics through sintering. All these ceramics displayed strong hydrophobic properties. Though they are called rare earth metals, they are not particularly rare. Most of them are available abundantly. Under test conditions the ceramics sustained their hydrophobic properties at temperature of up to 1,000 degree Celsius.
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