Superhydrophobic brass surfaces with tunable water adhesion fabricated by laser texturing followed by heat treatment and their anti-corrosion ability

[Display omitted] •Superhydrophobic brass surfaces with tunable water adhesion were prepared.•Water adhesion is tuned by solid-water interfacial area fractions.•Anti-corrosion ability of brass was improved after achieving superhydrophobicity.•Low-adhesion surface has better anti-corrosion ability than high-adhesion surface. Superhydrophobic metallic surfaces with tunable water adhesion have gained increasing interest due to their significance in both fundamental researches and practical applications. However, the relationship between the water adhesion and the anti-corrosion ability of the superhydrophobic metallic surfaces has been seldom studied. In this work, superhydrophobic brass surfaces with tunable water adhesion were fabricated by laser texturing followed by heat treatment, and the anti-corrosion ability of these surfaces was studied by performing electrochemistry tests. The analyses of surface structures and compositions revealed that the observed superhydrophobicity results from the micro/nanostructures produced by the laser texturing and the adsorption of organic matter from ambient air during the heat treatment; the different water adhesions of these superhydrophobic surfaces are attributed to their different solid–liquid interfacial area fractions. The results of the electrochemistry tests revealed that the anti-corrosion abilities of the investigated surfaces are the following order: the superhydrophobic surface with low water adhesion > the superhydrophobic surface with high water adhesion > the bare brass surface, which stems from the different solid-electrolyte interfacial area fractions of these surfaces.