In this article,
the effect of a porous material’s flexibility
on the dynamic reversibility of a nonwetting liquid intrusion was
explored experimentally. For this purpose, high-pressure water intrusion
together with high-pressure in situ small-angle neutron scattering
were applied for superhydrophobic grafted silica and two metal–organic
frameworks (MOFs) with different flexibility [ZIF-8 and Cu2(tebpz) (tebpz = 3,3′,5,5′tetraethyl-4,4′-bipyrazolate)].
These results established the relation between the pressurization
rate, water intrusion–extrusion hysteresis, and porous materials’
flexibility. It was demonstrated that the dynamic hysteresis of water
intrusion into superhydrophobic nanopores can be controlled by the
flexibility of a porous material. This opens a new area of applications
for flexible MOFs, namely, a smart pressure-transmitting fluid, capable
of dissipating undesired vibrations depending on their frequency.
Finally, nanotriboelectric experiments were conducted and the results
showed that a porous material’s topology is important for electricity
generation while not affecting the dynamic hysteresis at any speed.