Controlling water
transport and management is crucial for continuous
and reliable system operation in harsh weather conditions. Passive
strategies based on nonwetting surfaces are desirable, but so far,
the implementation of superhydrophobic coatings into real-world applications
has been limited by durability issues and, in some cases, lack of
compliance with environmental regulations. Inspired by surface patterning
observed on living organisms, in this study we have developed durable
surfaces based on contrast wettability for capillary-driven water
transport and management. The surface fabrication process combines
a hydrophobic coating with hard-anodized aluminum patterning, using
a scalable femtosecond laser microtexturing technique. The concept
targets heavy-duty engineering applications; particularly in aggressive
weather conditions where corrosion is prevalent and typically the
anodic aluminum oxide-based coating is used to protect the surface
from corrosion, the concept has been validated on anodic aluminum
oxide coated aluminum alloy substrates. Such substrates with contrast
wettable characteristics show long-term durability in both natural
and lab-based artificial UV and corrosion tests where superhydrophobic
coatings tend to degrade.