Research progress in the preparation and application of graphene-based superhydrophobic materials

Superhydrophobicity in the surface is a phenomenon in which the contact angle between the water and the corresponding surface is greater than 150° and the rolling angle is less than 10°. A superhydrophobic surface exhibits unique properties and has a wide range of application prospects in the field of self-cleaning, anti-corrosion, anti-icing, oil-water separation, and antibacterial agents. In addition to its unique self-cleaning properties, it can play a distinctive role in the fields of building maintenance, anti-biological corrosion in ship bodies, medical antibacterial agents, etc. At present, low-surface-energy materials commonly used to construct superhydrophobic materials mainly include alkane compounds, organosilicon compounds, and fluorine-containing compounds. However, these materials generally have problems of high production costs, large environmental pollution, and complex preparation processes, which severely restrict the industrial production and application of superhydrophobic coatings. Graphene is a two-dimensional honeycomb-structured material formed by the covalent bonding of carbon atoms through sp2 hybrid orbitals. It is the basic unit of graphite, and it is the thinnest two-dimensional material found so far. As a class of materials with outstanding physical and chemical properties, graphene materials have always received extensive attention because of its high electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, high specific surface area, high light transmittance, and excellent mechanical properties. Therefore, graphene has been considered a promising material in aerospace, petrochemical, marine ships, and other fields. The construction of superhydrophobic surfaces based on graphene is a relatively new direction in the research of superhydrophobic surfaces at present. Although graphene-based superhydrophobic materials have shown excellent performance in the laboratory, they have not been used on a large scale in industrial production. In this paper, the principles of superhydrophobic surfaces were summarized, focusing on the research status of graphene-based super-hydrophobic materials preparation technology, including surface modification, deposition modification, laser induction, dip-coating method, and layer-by-layer self-assembly. The applications of graphene-based super-hydrophobic materials in the fields of self-cleaning, oil-water separation, anti-icing, corrosion resistance, and anti- bacterial agents were also introduced. Finally, this paper presents the prospective future research directions of graphene-based super-hydrophobic materials.