Abstract
Unidirectional liquid transport has been extensively explored for water/fog harvesting, electrochemical sensing, and desalination. However, current research mainly focuses on linear liquid transport (transport angle α= 0°), which exhibits hindered lateral liquid spreading and low unidirectional transport efficiency. Inspired by the wide-angle (0°< α< 180°) liquid transport on butterfly wings, this work successfully achieves linear (α= 0°), wide-angle, and even ultra-wide-angle (α= 180°) liquid transport by four-dimensional (4D)printing of butterfly scale-inspired re-entrant structures. These asymmetric re-entrant structures can achieve unidirectional liquid transport, and their layout can control the Laplace pressure in the forward (structure-tilting) and lateral directions to adjust the transport angle. Specifically, high transport efficiency and programmable forward/lateral transport paths are simultaneously achieved by the ultra-wide-angle transport, where liquid fills the lateral path before being transported forward. Moreover, the ultra-wide-angle transport is also validated in 3D space, which provides an innovative platform for advanced biochemical microreaction, large-area evaporation, and self-propelled oil-water separation.
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