Green Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Surfaces Using Laser Surface Texturing Without Toxic Chemicals: A Review

This review study provides an overview of superhydrophobic surface fabrication techniques based on laser surface texturing that are environmentally friendly. There are many prospective applications for superhydrophobic surfaces, including self-cleaning, anti-icing, oil–water separation, anti-corrosion, and anti-biofouling. Except for hydrophobic nanoparticle coating procedures, superhydrophobic surface manufacturing methods have not been sufficiently developed or commercialized. Among the various fabrication techniques, laser surface texturing is an important process that is different from superhydrophobic surface coating processes. This technique can be used to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces in an eco-friendly manner and can process selected regions without the use of a mask. This review study is intended to improve our understanding of these laser surface texturing technologies for fabricating superhydrophobic surfaces and to open up new research areas. In this review, procedures, materials, and parameters for creating superhydrophobic surfaces using laser processing and environmentally friendly post-processing are analyzed and summarized. Because they involve the use of hazardous chemicals, common laser processes with fluorination or silanization coatings were not included. Finally, we provide an overview of the study trends and offer conclusions based on this review.