A material that can repel almost any liquid has been developed by engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,USA. Scientists etched a silicon wafer to create a group of tightly-packed conductive silicon shanks & non-conducting silicon oxide heads that resemble tiny nails. Their roughly- textured surfaces have been shown to repel water, oil & solvents. This technology could be of use in biomedical applications, e.g. lab-on-a-chip technology, or in the manufacture of self-cleaning surfaces. Researchers have created a superhydrophobic glass powder coating that they claim causes water-based solutions to bounce off virtually any surface. After phase separating & crushing glass into a powder, scientists used differential etching to make the power porous & then added it to a hydrophobic solution. This creates an 'unwettable' coating material much cheaper than others.
