Butterfly Wings

Posted by BlackJack On Tuesday, August 4, 2009 0 comments

Taking their from a vivid blue butterfly (Morpho sulkowskyi). They noticed that the surface micro texture of the butterfly wings repels water and the same time diffracts light that gives the wings an iridescent color.

The Japanese coating mimics the butterfly’s technique not only does it repel water, but it also comes in different colors too. They made the coating by assembling a film composed of 6 nanometer wide silica particles and several hundred micrometer wide polystyrene spheres. They then evaporated the polystyrene by heating the film, leaving the silica nanoparticles with gaps in between. They now rough surface was then coated with a commercially available water proofing compound called flouroalkylsilane and viola! A super hydrophobic coating was born. The flouroalkylsilanes waterproofing ability was further enhanced by rough surface of the film. And but tweaking the spaces between the gaps in the silica nanoparticles.

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Butterfly Wings

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