Systems and methods for super-hydrophobic and super-oleophobic surface treatments

A method of treating substrate surfaces to impart them with super-hydrophobic and super-oleophobic properties comprising:

• (a) pre-treating the substrate surface to produce chemically active peroxides on the surface;
• (b) synthesizing monodispersed silica nanoparticles and monodispersed larger silica particles;
• (c) modifying the monodispersed silica nanoparticles and monodispersed larger silica particles prepared in step (b) with different functional groups, wherein the smaller particles attach to the larger particles via chemical reactions between the functional groups, producing dual-scale particles then having hydrophobic properties;
• (d) submersing the substrate into a Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) trough apparatus, the apparatus having a water sub-phase with a monolayer of the dual-scale particles spread on the sub-phase surface;
• (e) raising the substrate from said sub-phase into the air at a first speed to deposit the monolayer of dual-scale particles onto the substrate surface, wherein the first speed allows the deposited dual-scale particles on the surface to have enough time to undergo a dehydration process and form covalent bonds between the monolayer of dual-scale particles and the surface, the monolayer of dual-scale particles is a formation of a 2-dimensional planar array structure with a predetermined thickness having re-entrant angles;
• and
• (f) treating the substrate surface with SiCl4 to cross-link the dual-scale particles to each other and to the surface, wherein the substrate surface is coated with a nano-structured topographic surface retaining the re-entrant angles of the structure to impart super-hydrophobic and super-oleophobic properties.