**5. Conclusions**

*21st Century Surface Science - a Handbook*

promotes the synthetic talc dispersion into the polymer matrix (PLLA), thereby obtaining a nanometric size scale distribution of the talc. In addition, among the parameters studied, the relative humidity (RH) was found significantly to affect the fiber morphology. By keeping all the electrospinning parameters constant and increasing the relative humidity (Rh), the morphology completely changes. This increment increases the homogeneity of the PLLA/ts fibers and turns out to be opposite with respect to PLLA fibers. Moreover, the influence of the electrical field by decreasing the voltage shows that the homogeneity tends to decrease. The dispersion of the synthetic talc on the nanofiber produces an evident effect in the wettability, as the PLLA/ts electrospun mat is highly hydrophobic by exhibiting an increment in the WCA value from 92 up to 140°. Other aspect to remark is that the presence of talc has promoted the development of a small amount of crystallinity

**198**

**Figure 7.**

*TEM images of the prepared typical ES PLA/TiO2 fibers. (A) Low-magnification TEM image of ES PLA/TiO2 fibers. (B) Magnified TEM image of an ES PLA/TiO2 fiber captured for the observation of typical cavities. (C) Magnified TEM image of an ES PLA/TiO2 fiber captured for the observation of TiO2 nanoparticles. (D) High-resolution TEM image zoomed in from the marked area in (C) for the identification of the lattice fringe of TiO2 nanocrystallites. (E–G) The O, C, and Ti element mapping images of the location are indicated in image (C) with a dashed rectangle. The scale bars in all the mapping images (E–G) are* 

*100 nm. Reprinted with permission of Wang et al. [65].*

In this work, electrospinning is presented as a novel engineering technique for the design of superhydrophobic surfaces. In order to obtain this special wettability, it is necessary to control two crucial factors such as a low surface energy and a hierarchical surface roughness on at least two different length scales (i.e., micrometric and nanometric morphology). The electrospinning is a good candidate because it is possible to control both parameters as a function of the operational parameters such as applied voltage, polymeric precursor concentration, flow rate, and tip-tocollector distance. A good control over these parameters makes possible the fabrication of electrospun fibers with a desired morphology (mostly size, porosity, and fiber diameter).

Finally, a summary of different potential industrial applications is presented due to the design of corrosion-resistant surfaces, high-efficient water-oil separation


#### **Table 1.**

*Summary of the different sensitive electrospun coatings, the metallic substrates used, and the resultant corrosion tests for the development of new and innovative protective coatings with good anticorrosion properties.*

**201**

**Author details**

Pamplona, Spain

Pedro J. Rivero1,2\*, Adrian Vicente1

provided the original work is properly cited.

of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain

and Rafael J. Rodriguez1,2

1 Materials Engineering Laboratory, Department of Engineering, Public University

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

2 Institute for Advanced Materials (INAMAT), Public University of Navarre,

\*Address all correspondence to: pedrojose.rivero@unavarra.es

*Electrospinning Technique as a Powerful Tool for the Design of Superhydrophobic Surfaces*

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades-Retos (Project RTI2018-096262-B-C41-MAITAI) and by the Public

membranes, long-term efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells, or even in biomedical applications for the development of antibacterial surfaces with a high efficiency against bacteria or pollutants. To sum up, it has been demonstrated that this deposition technique can be used as a promising alternative in the real world in several

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92688*

disciplines of the science and technology.

University of Navarre (Project PJUPNA1929).

**Acknowledgements**

*Electrospinning Technique as a Powerful Tool for the Design of Superhydrophobic Surfaces DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92688*

membranes, long-term efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells, or even in biomedical applications for the development of antibacterial surfaces with a high efficiency against bacteria or pollutants. To sum up, it has been demonstrated that this deposition technique can be used as a promising alternative in the real world in several disciplines of the science and technology.
