Textual Abstract:
Wet sneakers on rainy days are common discomfort. Our study aims to identify the most effective waterproofingmaterial for sneakers by analyzing the performance of various hydrophobic coatings on different shoe materials. We assessed two types of shoe materials and five types of hydrophobic coatings, using a confocal laser scanningmicroscope to analyze the surface roughness of each material with different coatings, and a high-speed camera to observe the behavior of water droplets inboth dynamic condition, simulating rain by releasing droplets from a height of 40 cm. The Nanoparticle Hydrophobic Spray provided the best performance in terms of splash angle. The ranking from most to least hydrophobic in terms of splash angle was nanoparticle hydrophobic spray, nail polish,wood wax oil, dimethicone, and photosensitive oil. For shoe materials, leather showed higher splash angles compared to canvas. These results are mostly consistent with the surface roughness measurements in terms of Surface Kurtosis (Rku).
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