Author(s)

Jan Macko¹, Natália Podrojková¹, Radim Hrdý^2,3, Andrej Oriňak^1*, Renáta Oriňaková¹, Jaromír Hubálek^2,3, Jaroslav Vojtuš⁴, Zuzana Kostecká⁵, Roger M. Smith⁶

¹Department of Physical Chemistry, University of P. J. Safárik in Kosice, Kosice, Slovakia.
²Depatrment of Microelectronics, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic.
³Central European Institute of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic.
⁴Department of Architectural Engineering, Institute of Architectural Engineering, Kosice, Slovakia.
⁵University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Kosice, Slovakia.
⁶Department of Chemistry, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK.

Highly ordered nickel and silver nanorods arrays prepared by alumina template assisted electrodeposition were investigated to determine the effect of the array geometry on metal surface hydrophobicity and adhesion forces. The nanorod geometry, clustering and pinning were used to characterize surface hydrophobicity and its modulation. A contribution of metal crystallographic orientation to the surface energy was calculated. To characterize nanorod array surface properties and elucidate the source of the particle adhesion effects has been calculated. The dispersive components of surface tension γ_S^D and surface polarizability k_s, as surface features that markedly characterize hydrophobicity and adhesion, were calculated. The highest hydrophobicity was found for Ag nanorods with aspect ratio of 10 then Ni nanorods with aspect ratio 10. The same geometry of nanorods particles resulted in different surface hydrophobicity and it was ascribed to the orientation of Ag and Ni crystals formed on the top of nanorods. Due to high hydrophobicity nanorod array surfaces could be used as an antifouling surface in medicine to select areas on implant surface not to be colonized by cells and tissues.

Nanorods, Silver, Nickel, Hydrophobicity, Surface Energy, Crystallinity

Macko, J. , Podrojková, N. , Hrdý, R. , Oriňak, A. , Oriňaková, R. , Hubálek, J. , Vojtuš, J. , Kostecká, Z. and Smith, R. (2019) Hydrophobicity of Highly Ordered Nanorod Polycrystalline Nickel and Silver Surfaces. Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, 7, 279-293. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2019.75020.