Survival in desert: Extreme water adaptations and bioinspired structural designs

Using Paper as a Biomimetic Fog Harvesting Material

“…This clearly indicated that the particles were covered by a thin layer of wax, which, according to the latest findings, also corresponds to the Namib desert beetle surface as a natural model. [ 17 ]…”

“…This clearly indicated that the particles were covered by a thin layer of wax, which, according to the latest findings, also corresponds to the Namib desert beetle surface as a natural model. [17] To investigate the influence of the pinning centers in more detail, hybrid surfaces with different SiO 2 -particle coverages of ≈1% (0.75%) and ≈17% (17.32%) were prepared. The determination of the surface coverage with silica particles is described in SI-6 (Supporting Information).…”

“…Biological surfaces, for example, spider silk, cactus, Nepenthes, or Namib desert beetles, control the interaction with water using a variety of surface chemistry and morphological characteristics that enable water collection from the atmosphere even in arid environments. [1,8,16,17] They all share common heterogeneous surfaces with varying chemistry and topography, although the final water affinity is different. [7] The backs of some Namib desert beetles, such as the prominent Stenocara gracilipes species, consist of bumpy regions with varying surface wettability.…”

“…[26] Although the individual importance of different factors influencing the fog harvesting efficiency of Namib Desert beetles is still under discussion, [1,19,20] the hybrid wettability pattern has been proven to promote water collection out of fog by many hybrid wettability patterned artificial surfaces. [17] Currently, researchers investigating such hybrid patterned surfaces focus on material development by mimicking the surface chemistry and morphology of natural models. [12,20,27,28] As reviewed by Sun et al, [29] Wang et al, [30] and Yu et al, [31] several researchers have mimicked biosurfaces, such as spider silk, [32][33][34] cactus, [32,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] scallop shell, [43] or Namib desert beetle, [18, and multi-bioinspired approaches have also been used.…”

“…[ 26 ] Although the individual importance of different factors influencing the fog harvesting efficiency of Namib Desert beetles is still under discussion, [ 1,19,20 ] the hybrid wettability pattern has been proven to promote water collection out of fog by many hybrid wettability patterned artificial surfaces. [ 17 ]…”