Directionally Guided Droplets on a Modular Bottom-Up Anisotropic Locally Ordered Nickel Nanocone Superhydrophobic Surface

Abstract

The anisotropic surface prepared by the top-down etching technology shows unique advantages in terms of functional superhydrophobicity. However, it still has a shackle of the smallest etching size, which largely restricts the development of better superhydrophobicity. Therefore, it is still a huge challenge to realize the stepless size adjustment of an anisotropic surface in order to achieve better functionalization. In this work, a bottom-up approach inspired via the modular segmented preparation technology has been used to successfully build an anisotropic, locally ordered functionalized unique superhydrophobic structure, whose contact and rebound time of water droplets is extremely short. Furthermore, this structure with artfully arranged "tracks", which has a relatively large contact angle value, not only lasts more than 15 consecutive bounce cycles in the same direction, where the droplets after merging still bounce, but also exhibits a significant anisotropic sliding behavior, which is presented in different sliding angles, toward droplets rolling in different directions and has lower adhesion work and better self-cleaning and anti-fouling performance. Besides, some mechanisms such as the reduction−replacement−reduction cycle and repulsion−adhesion−switching have been proposed especially in modular preparation and anisotropic sliding behavior. More importantly, this sorted bottom-up structure has great potential for achieving higher efficiency of functionalized superhydrophobicity and other related applications.

Combination of Universal Chemical Deposition and Unique Liquid Etching for the Design of Superhydrophobic Aramid Paper with Bioinspired Multiscale Hierarchical Dendritic Structure

“…The high-resolution O 1s spectrum of EAP is shown in Figure 4C, which could be divided into three different peaks, which could be attributed to C−O, Cu−O, and metal oxides due to the natural oxidation of metallic Cu in the air. 43 Furthermore, the K 2p core level spectrum consists of two typical peak components at 292.52 and 295.31 eV, which could be ascribed to K + species. The high-resolution Cu 2p spectrum of EAP could be deconvoluted into six peaks.…”

“…38 However, because the fluorine element and its compounds are toxic to the environment and can cause harm to human health by interfering with enzyme activity and are classified as pollutants, it is necessary to avoid the use of fluorinated materials on superhydrophobic surfaces. 39 At present, a great number of environment-friendly materials have successfully manufactured superhydrophobic surfaces, for instance, tetradecanoic acid, 40 hexamethyl disilazane, 41 polydimethylsiloxane, 42 stearic acid, 43 and so forth. In brief, limited by simple fabrication procedures, a superhydrophobic material manufacturing method that is facile, low-cost, scalable, and eco-friendly is in great demand of all time.…”

Photoelectric synergistic anisotropic slippery interface for directional droplets manipulation

“…The directional transport of liquids plays an essential role in industrial production and human life and is widely used in many fields such as oil-water directional separation, [1][2][3][4][5] microfluidic chips, [6][7][8] directional sensing, 9 biological detection 10,11 and anisotropic self-cleaning. [12][13][14][15] Directional transportation and manipulation of liquid droplets mainly depend on anisotropic interfaces with special wettability, such as anisotropic superhydrophobic interfaces [16][17][18][19] and anisotropic slippery interfaces. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Among them, the anisotropic slippery surfaces have attracted widespread attention due to their excellent performance, such as liquid repellency, 28,29 low contact angle (CA) hysteresis, 28 self-cleaning, 12,30 self-healing 22 and pressure resistance.…”

Utilizing Cell Culture Assisted Anodization to Fabricate Aluminium Oxide with a Gradient Microstep and Nanopore Structure

“…Gradient microstep integrated with a nanostructure are nanostructures arrayed on microsteps whose heights gradually change from high to low at the microscale. Due to structural asymmetry, large specific surface area, and small solid–liquid contact area, they have promising applications in many fields, such as directional liquid self-transportation, − water collection, , catalysis, tissue culture, , and so on. Furthermore, the gradually changed microstructures can prevent the nanostructures from being completely destroyed, which increases the stability of the material.…”