Flourishing Bioinspired Antifogging Materials with Superwettability: Progresses and Challenges

Abstract

Antifogging (AF) structure materials found in nature have great potential for enabling novel and emerging products and technologies to facilitate the daily life of human societies, attracting enormous research interests owing to their potential applications in display devices, traffics, agricultural greenhouse, food packaging, solar products, and other fields. The outstanding performance of biological AF surfaces encourages the rapid development and wide application of new AF materials. In fact, AF properties are inextricably associated with their surface superwettability. Generally, the superwettability of AF materials depends on a combination of their surface geometrical structures and surface chemical compositions. To explore their general design principles, recent progresses in the investigation of bioinspired AF materials are summarized herein. Recent developments of the mechanism, fabrication, and applications of bioinspired AF materials with superwettability are also a focus. This includes information on constructing superwetting AF materials based on designing the topographical structure and regulating the surface chemical composition. Finally, the remaining challenges and promising breakthroughs in this field are also briefly discussed.

Micro‐/Nanostructured Interface for Liquid Manipulation and Its Applications

“…Long before human had even arisen in the world, the evolving life had developed countless strategies to actively manipulate liquids for surviving . The lotus leaves in ponds exhibit highly water repellence and self‐cleaning capability .…”

“…Although enormous works have been reported in this field, controlled liquid manipulation through engineered micro‐/nanostructure, especially that rivals those of biological systems, remains a challenge, which usually involves certain trails and error processes. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding about the relationship between liquid manipulation and micro‐/nanostructured interface is highly desirable.…”

Preparation of superhydrophilic nanosilica/polyacrylate hard coatings on plastic substrate for antifogging and frost‐resistant applications

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Good performance of such AFF coatings on glass and metals (Al and Cu) has been achieved. This phenomenon is known as fogging or frosting depending on whether the surface temperature is lower than the dew or frost point of water.…”

Flourishing Self‐Healing Surface Materials: Recent Progresses and Challenges

“…Moreover, the self‐healing function also displays great promise in surfaces with special functions. The extensive studies have been reported for designing special surface for controlling wettability, antifouling, antifogging, and so forth, which can be called “functional surface” or “functional surface material,” attracting enormous interests owing to their potential applications in different fields. Typically, the most well‐known fascinating surface property present in nature is lotus leaf effect, which remains self‐cleaning despite in mud, a real mystery of superhydrophobic property.…”