Alteration of Wettability of Copper–Copper Oxide Nanocomposites through Cu–O Bond Breaking Swayed by Ultraviolet and Electron Irradiation

Converting a nonwetting surface to a highly wetting one, aided by ultraviolet radiation, is well explored. Here, in this work, we show just the reverse behavior of a copper-copper oxide nanocomposite surface where ultraviolet radiation turned the superhydrophilic surface to a superhydrophobic one. This observation is explained both experimentally and theoretically using first-principles density functional theory-based calculations considering the metal-oxygen (Cu-O) bond breaking and related change in surface chemistry. This observation has further been corroborated with electron irradiation on the same nanocomposite material. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, we show that the radiation-induced breaking of the copper-oxygen bond makes the nanostructure surface energetically unfavorable for water adsorption.