The springtail cuticle as a blueprint for omniphobic surfaces

Abstract

Omniphobic surfaces found in nature have great potential for enabling novel and emerging products and technologies to facilitate the daily life of human societies. One example is the water and even oil-repellent cuticle of springtails (Collembola). The wingless arthropods evolved a highly textured, hierarchically arranged surface pattern that affords mechanical robustness and wetting resistance even at elevated hydrostatic pressures. Springtail cuticle-derived surfaces therefore promise to overcome limitations of lotus-inspired surfaces (low durability, insufficient repellence of low surface tension liquids). In this review, we report on the liquid-repellent natural surfaces of arthropods living in aqueous or temporarily flooded habitats including water-walking insects or water spiders. In particular, we focus on springtails presenting an overview on the cuticular morphology and chemistry and their biological relevance. Based on the obtained liquid repellence of a variety of liquids with remarkable efficiency, the review provides general design criteria for robust omniphobic surfaces. In particular, the resistance against complete wetting and the mechanical stability strongly both depend on the topographical features of the nano- and micropatterned surface. The current understanding of the underlying principles and approaches to their technological implementation are summarized and discussed.

Superhydrophobic hierarchically structured surfaces in biology: evolution, structural principles and biomimetic applications

“…For this reason, the highly complex surface topography exhibiting overhanging surface structures with undercuts evolved. First attempts have been made to transfer these properties to technical materials [117,118].…”

Funnel‐Shaped Microstructures for Strong Reversible Adhesion

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] The key is an optimized surface pattern tailored to the application that can be manufactured by techniques such as lithography, nanoimprint, or self-organization. [7,[13][14][15][16] Patterned surfaces can exhibit better adhesion compared to nonpatterned counterparts, e.g., due to a higher compliance and, therefore, reduced elastic strain energy penalties and a higher conformability to various substrate topographies; these benefits have been termed the "contact splitting" effect. [2,17,18] The adhesion relies mainly on van der Waals interactions across the pattern-substrate interface.…”

Surfaces Bearing Fluorinated Nucleoperfluorolipids for Potential Anti-Graffiti Surface Properties

“…If the lotus leaf remains one of the more popular example, several other examples exist such as the rice leaf, the Echeveria leaf, water striders, fishing spiders, etc. Spectacular oleophobic properties have also been reported on springtails [11,12].…”

“…Globally, these models enable the understanding that two parameters are of particular interest to control the surface wettability: surface energy and surface roughness [17,18]. Observations performed on springtails have also shown that, in the case of oleophobic features, a third parameter has to be considered [11,12]. The surface morphology should include reentrant cavities.…”