Wetting Ridge-Guided Directional Water Self-Transport.

Directional water self-transport plays a crucial role in diverse applications such as biosensing and water harvesting. Despite extensive progress, current strategies for directional water self-transport are restricted to a short self-driving distance, single function, and complicated fabrication methods. Here, a lubricant-infused heterogeneous superwettability surface (LIHSS) for directional water self-transport is proposed on polyimide (PI) film through femtosecond laser direct writing and lubricant infusion. By tuning the parameters of the femtosecond laser, the wettability of PI film can be transformed into superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic. After trapping water droplets on the superhydrophilic surface and depositing excess lubricant, the asymmetrical wetting ridge drives water droplets by an attractive capillary force on the LIHSS. Notably, the maximum droplet self-driving distance can approach ≈3 mm, which is nearly twice as long as the previously reported strategies for direction water self-transport. Significantly, it is demonstrated that this strategy makes it possible to achieve water self-transport, anti-gravity pumping, and chemical microreaction on a tilted LIHSS. This work provides an efficient method to fabricate a promising platform for realizing directional water self-transport. © 2022 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Citation

Lingxiao Wang, Kai Yin, Qinwen Deng, Qiaoqiao Huang, Jun He, Ji-An Duan. Wetting Ridge-Guided Directional Water Self-Transport. Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany). 2022 Oct 17;9(34):e2204891

PMID: 36253156

search → result