Super-material shrugs off molten metal

Droplets already bounce off water-repellent surfaces, but scientists have engineered materials that speed up the bounce to repel water faster.

Even the brief contact time between a surface and a droplet that bounces off it can allow water to freeze or collect on the surface and cause damage. Scientists previously thought that contact time was shortest when droplets spread and recoil symmetrically on a material before bouncing off. But in a paper published today in Nature¹, a team has shown that a textured surface can cause droplets to recoil with controlled asymmetry, and bounce away faster than was thought possible.