UC Irvine

Addressing a desired surface wettability has been a significant challenge for a variety of innovative thermofluidic applications from anti-icing coating to two-phase heat exchangers. Surface wettability can be controlled by fabricating nanostructures on the surfaces and modifying their chemistry. While numerous nanofabrication efforts have been investigated for this purpose, a solution immersion method is suggested in this research since it can effectively install nanostructures on two-dimensional or three-dimensional surfaces over a large area. Therefore, we employ the solution immersion method in order to investigate the wettability of copper oxide nanostructures related to fabrication parameters. The examples of copper oxide nanostructures include nanoneedles and nanoflowers/nanograsses on polished copper substrates and open-cell porous copper structures (i.e. copper inverse opals). Detailed analysis is followed to quantify surface structural details, chemical composition, and surface wettability. The understanding of structure- and chemistry-dependent wettability will pave the way for the implementation of copper nanostructures with well-controlled wetting properties into future copper-based thermofluidic applications such as heat exchangers and heat pipes.