Multibehavioral droplet manipulation
in a precise and programmed
manner is crucial for stoichiometry, biological virus detection, and
intelligent lab-on-a-chip. Apart from fundamental navigation, merging,
splitting, and dispensing of the droplets are required for being combined
in a microfluidic chip as well. Yet, existing active manipulations
including strategies from light to magnetism are arduous to use to
split liquids on superwetting surfaces without mass loss and contamination,
because of the high cohesion and Coanda effect. Here, we demonstrate
a charge shielding mechanism (CSM) for platforms to integrate with
a series of functions. In response to attachment of shielding layers
from the bottom, the instantaneous and repeatable change of local
potential on our platform achieves the desired loss-free manipulation
of droplets, with a wide-ranging surface tension from 25.7 mN m–1 to 87.6 mN m–1, functioning as
a noncontact air knife to cleave, guide, rotate, and collect reactive
monomers on demand. With further refinement of the surface circuit,
the droplets, just as the electron, can be programmed to be transported
directionally at extremely high speeds of 100 mm s–1. This new generation of microfluidics is expected to be applied
in the field of bioanalysis, chemical synthesis, and diagnostic kit.
Interfacial solar evaporation has been considered as a compromising way to alleviate water shortage. However, when applied in real sea water environment, the undissolved salt accumulation and bacteria adhesion will cause blockage and fouling problem of the evaporator, and deteriorate its evaporation performance. Herein, a solar evaporator based on hollow cylinder‐shaped photocatalytic modified ceramic with renewability and antibacterial activity is fabricated for efficient seawater desalination. This evaporator can reach an evaporation rate of 3.43 kg m−2 h−1 in the normal environment (1 sun irradiation, 50% ambient relative humidity and 0 m s−1 convective airflow) and also can reach a rate of 28.9 kg m−2 h−1 in the controlled environment (1 sun irradiation, 10% ambient relative humidity and 5 m s−1 convective airflow) due to the sufficient effective evaporation area and timely vapor diffusion. Meanwhile, after long‐term desalination of real seawater, the blocked evaporators can be regenerated by acid treatment. The evaporator also shows 91.7% antibacterial ratio due to photocatalytic modification. In the field environment, the array evaporator shows a good evaporation performance of 54.5 kg m−2 for continuous 10 h. Finally, the empirical formula is obtained to quantitatively analyze the environmental factors and predict the evaporation rate in practical application.
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