Heterogeneous Crystallization on Different Wetting Surfaces

It is a significant challenge of the scaling behavior at the solid-liquid interface in fields such as pipeline transportation and metal anticorrosion. Herein, we fabricate four representative structures, with flat, micron, nano, and micronano, to understand the scaling mechanism on different wetting state. We show that improving the wetting state is a positive effect on enhancing the heterogeneous nucleation barrier, thereby facilitating the inhibition of crystallization behavior at the solid-liquid interface. The heterogeneous nucleation barrier of the Cassie-state superhydrophobic surface is very close to the homogeneous one. However, the Cassie-state easily transforms into the Wenzel state, such as on the nanosurface. This results in its lack of long-term antiscaling ability. For instance, the micronano surface with more stability can reduce the CaCO₃ scaling rate to 0.335 mg/cm² from 1.24 mg/cm² after 42 days. This advantage remains significant even in more rigorous dynamic antiscaling tests. It provides an essential design concept for creating highly effective antiscaling surfaces, that is, how to create a long-term stable Cassie-state superhydrophobicity.