Fig. 6. Illustration of water residing within a representative hydrophobic film, with the majority of water present at the relatively rough polymer–water interface.

Layer 1 depicts decreasing water content with increasing distance from the film–water interface followed by a reduced water content in layer 2. “Wet” and “dry” polymer chains are depicted on the right, illustrating that the water resides within pre-existing voids throughout the film and does not swell the polymer chains.