The
scarcity of fresh water resources has become increasingly
serious
in recent years, posing threats to the survival of mankind. The ability
of the animals and plants in arid areas to collect water from moisture
and fog has drawn attention worldwide. Inspired by the synergistic
fog harvesting mode of natural organisms with superhydrophilic and
superhydrophobic patterning, a composite membrane with a concave–convex
morphology and hybrid wettability was prepared aiming at efficient
fog harvesting. The hybrid wettability surface was obtained by chemically
modifying the superhydrophilic PAN substrate with 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyltrichlorosilane
using iron mesh as the mask. The porous PAN substrate was prepared
by the non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) method. Fog harvesting
is a three-step process: condensation, coalescence, and rapid transportation
of water droplets. The area and ratio of the hydrophilic/hydrophobic
regions were tuned by adjusting the mesh number of the iron meshes.
Under the optimal condition, the fog harvesting efficiencies of 40.3
and 74.2 mg·cm–2·min–1 were obtained when the fog yields were 0.05 and 0.1 L·min–1, respectively. The present work provides an alternative
strategy for addressing the shortage of fresh water resources.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.