A facile method to prepare superhydrophobic fluorinated polysiloxane/ZnO nanocomposite coatings with corrosion resistance

•We have developed a facile and inexpensive method to fabricate superhydrophobic fluorinated polysiloxane/ZnO nanocomposite on the steel substrates.•The surface exhibits a water contact angle of 166° and a sliding angle of 4°.•The micro/nano-hierarchical roughness structures with the low surface energy leads to surface superhydrophobicity.•The prepared superhydrophobic surface possesses good durability and corrosion resistance. In this paper, we report a simple and inexpensive method for fabricating fluorinated polysiloxane/ZnO nanocomposite coatings on the steel substrates. The surface wettability and topology of coating were characterized by contact angle measurement, scanning electron microscope and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry. The results showed that the hydrophobic CH3 and CH2 groups were introduced into ZnO particles via modification, the ZnO nanoparticles were modified from hydrophilic to hydrophobic. When the weight ratio of modified-ZnO to fluorinated polysiloxane was 13:7, the contact angle of nanocomposite coating was 166°, and a sliding angle of 4°, coating surface with hierarchical micro/nano-structures. In addition, the as-prepared superhydrophobic surface has excellent durability and corrosion resistance. It is believed that the facile and low-cost method offer an effective strategy and promising industrial applications for fabricating superhydrophobic surfaces on steel materials.