Water Rolls Off, Current Flows: The Rise of Conductive Superhydrophobic Textiles

ABSTRACT

Conductive superhydrophobic textiles uniquely combine electrical conductivity with extreme water repellency, enabling humidity‐resistant wearable electronics, smart protective clothing, and self‐powered systems. This review systematically examines the design principles, fabrication strategies, and multifunctional applications of these materials, with a focus on the core interfacial coupling mechanism—water rolls off, current flows—that governs their performance. Key application domains are critically analyzed, with emphasis on how superhydrophobic protection enhances device stability under humid, sweaty, or rainy conditions. The review identifies fundamental bottlenecks—conductive network failure under deformation, poor durability of hydrophobic interfaces, and inherent trade‐offs between conductivity and water repellency—that currently limit practical deployment. A structured translation roadmap from laboratory design to scalable manufacturing is presented, incorporating the development workflow of discovery, design, fabrication, testing, validation, qualification, scaling, deployment, impact, and sustainability. Future directions, including stretchable self‐healing architectures, artificial intelligence (AI)‐guided inverse design, fluorine‐free sustainable manufacturing, and self‐powered wireless textile systems, are discussed with technical specificity. This review provides a unified framework connecting materials chemistry, textile engineering, and device physics, guiding researchers and engineers toward transforming these materials from laboratory prototypes to real‐world products that enhance human safety, comfort, and connectivity.