SUPERHYDROPHOBICITY IN FLOWER PETALS

A PROJECT REPORT submitted to

MAHATMA GANDHI UNIVERSITY

By

AKHIL RAJENDRAN (Reg No: 13028384)

HARISANKAR S (Reg No: 13028410)

JOPHIN JOSEPH (Reg No: 13028416)

SUBIN MATHEW (Reg No: 13028434)

In partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY

In

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Department of Mechanical Engineering

MUTHOOT INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE PUTHENCRUZ

APRIL 2017
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our sincere gratitude to our guide Mrs. Nimmu Mary Ivan, Asst. Professor,
Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science for the expert guidance and advice in doing this
project.

We would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. S Ramkumar,

Principal, Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science, Puthencruz for
fostering an excellent academic climate in the college and for his support
and encouragement throughout the course period

We express our sincere thanks to Asst. Prof. Manoj George, Head of the Department,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science, for
their kind co-operation during the course of this work.

We would also wish to record our gratefulness to all our friends and classmates for their help
and support in carrying out this work successfully.

Above all we thank God almighty for giving us the oppurtunity for the successful completion
of the project.
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project report entitled SUPERHYDROPHOBICITY IN FLOWER

PETALS submitted by AKHIL RAJENDRAN, HARISANKAR S, JOPHIN JOSEPH,

SUBIN MATHEWto the Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam, Kerala in partial fulfillment

for the award of Degree of Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering is a bonafide

record of the project work carried out by him under my supervision during the year 2016-2017.

Mr. MANOJ GEORGE Mrs. NIMMU MARY IVAN

(Head of Department) (Project Guide)

Department of Mechanical Engineering Asst.Professor, Department of

MITS Mechanical engineering

MITS

Place: MITS, PUTHENCRUZ

Date : 25-05-2017

(Department Seal)
 ABSTRACT

Superhydrophobic surfaces are highly hydrophobic, i.e., extremely difficult to wet. The contact
angles of a water droplet exceeds 150 and the roll-off angle/contact angle hysteresis is less
than 10.Water spilled on a superhydrophobic surface does not wet the surface, but simply rolls
off. Additionally, as water moves across the superhydrophobic surface, it picks up and carries
away any foreign material, such as dust or dirt. i.e., superhydrophobic surfaces are self-
cleaning also.
Aim of this project is to study the superhydrophobic nature of flower petals. Methodology
adopted for this project is, capture the image of the petal with water drop on it using a high
definition camera and process the image to find out the contact angle and sort out the flowers
according to family, colour, abundancy.

This project provides a sound data base for using superhydrophobic petal surfaces to produce
highly superhydrophobic surfaces by biomimetics. It also shows a hydrophobic surface
forming technique by nanocasting.

KEYWORDS: Superhydrophobic surfaces, Self cleaning, Biomimetics , Nanocasting,

Contact angle, Hysterisiss

 CONTENTS
Page no
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................

LISTOFFIGURES..............................................................................................

LIST OF TABLES&GRAPHS..........................................................................

CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION......................................................................1
1.1 Objective........................................................................................................ 2
1.2Scope and motivation fortheproject................................................................. 2

CHAPTER 2 LITERATUREREVIEW..........................................................3

2.1Literaturereview....3

CHAPTER3-SUPERHYDROPHOBIC SURFACE.4

3.1Basicwettingproperties..................................................................................... 4

3.2 ContactAngleHysteresis................................................................................ 6

3.3 Advanced wettingproperties............................................................................ 7

3.4Super hydrophobic surfacesynthesistechniques................................................ 9

CHAPTER4-CHARACTERIZATION METHODS12

4.1 Petalsamplecollections...................................................................................12

4.2 Experimentalsetup.......................................................................................... 13

4.3 Experimentalprocedure.................................................................................. .15

4.3.1 Variation withpetalsurface..................................................................... .16

4.3.2 Variation withdropsize........................................................................... .16

4.3.3 Variationwithcolour..............16

4.3.4 Variationwithaging....17

4.3.5 Contact AngleHysteresismeasurement..17

4.4 Creation of superhydrophobicsurfaces..17

 4.4.1Spin casting ofsylgard184...19

CHAPTER5-WETTING PROPERTIES OF FLOWER PETALS.....21

5.1Wetting properties offlowerpetals...................................................................... .21

5.1.1 Effect of upper and lowerpetalsurfaces..................................................... .21

5.1.2 Effect ofdropsize.26

5.1.3 Effectofcolour........................................................................................... 30

5.1.4 Effect of agingforEuphorbia..................................................................... 33

5.1.5 Contact angle hysteresisforEuphorbia....................................................... 34

5.2 S.E.M ImagesofEuphorbia................................................................................. 36

CONCLUSION....................................................................................................... 37

REFERENCES....................................................................................................... 38
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page No
Figure 3.1: A water drop on a surface illustrating

the contact angle (0) and the relativeinterfacialenergies...4

Figure 3.2: Five types of wetting onsolidsurfaces..................5

Figure 3.3: ContactAngleHysteresis.................................................................................................7

Figure 3.4: Effect of roughness on contact angle for an inherentlyhydrophobicsurface...................8

Figure 3.5: Contact angle () as a function of roughness (Rf) for various contact angles

of smoothsurfaces(0)....................................................................................................8
Figure 3.6: Formation of a compositesolid-liquid-airinterface..........................................................9
Figure 3.7: Typical methods to fabricatemicro/nanoroughenedsurfaces..............................................10
Figure 3.8: Illustration of the lotus leaf replication process (nanocasting) and creation
of asuperhydrophobicsurface.............................................................................................11
Figure 4.1 : Image capturing system anddopingsystem.......................................................................13

Figure 4.2 : Image capturing system withDSLRCamera.................................................................14

Figure 4.3: Filler with graduations used forintroducingdroplets.....................................................14

Figure 4.4: Image J software toolbarandtools......................................................................................15

Figure 4.5: Chemical structure ofPolydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)....................................................18

Figure 4.6: Sylgard 184 used forspincasting....................................................................................19

Figure 4.7: Spincoater(exterior).............19

Figure 4.8: Spincoater(interior) .....20

Figure 5.1: Contact angle of Lily (orange) lower side[samplepicture]..............25

Figure.5.2: Contact angle of Lily(orange) upper side[samplepicture].......................26

Figure 5.3: Contact angle for 50ldropletsize ..............28

Figure.5.4: Contact angle for 200ldropletsize.....29

Figure.5.5: Contact angle for 150ldropletsize.................29

Figure 5.6: Contact angle for 100ldropletsize..............................................................................30

Figure 5.7: Contact angle of Euphorbia(Yellow)...........................................................................31

Figure 5.8: Contact angle of Euphorbia (Rose&yellow)................................................................32

Figure 5.9: Contact angle ofEuphorbia(Pink).................................................................................32

Figure 5.10: Contact angle ofEuphorbia (Red)...............................................................................33

Figure 5.11:AdvancingAngle..........................................................................................................34

Figure 5.12:RecedingAngle...........................................................................................................34

Figure 5.13: Self cleaning by Euphorbia(rose&yellow).................................................................35

Figure 5.14: S.E.M image ofEuphorbia(upperpart)........................................................................36

Figure 5.15: S.E.M image ofEuphorbia(lowerpart)........................................................................36

 LIST OF TABLES & GRAPHS

Tables PageNo.
Table 4.1: List of analysed flowers andtheirdetails.....................................................................12

Table 5.1: Contact angle v/s uppersurface...................................................................................21

Table 5.2: Contact angle v/s lowersurface...................................................................................23

Table 5.3: Contact angle v/s dropsize..........................................................................................27

Table 5.4: Contact angle v/s Different colours of the samespecies(Euphorbia)...........................30

Table 5.5: Contact angle v/s Agingperiod....................................................................................33

Graph PageNo.

Graph 5.1: Contact angle v/s sample no. for upper surface........................................................23

Graph 5.2: Contact angle v/s sample no.(lowersurface).............................................................24

Graph 5.3: Comparison of upper and lower surfaces(Histogram)..............................................25

Graph 5.4: Contact Angle v/s Droplet size(Linegraph)..............................................................27

Graph 5.5: Variation of contact angle with dropsize (Histogram)..............................................28

Graph 5.6: Variation of contact angle with colour.....................................................................31