Anisotropic wetting properties of oblique nanowires array and their applications on water transportation and fog collection

Abstract

As a widely existing phenomenon of the surface of natural organisms, anisotropic wetting arouses much attention for their wide applications in fields as liquid transportation, fog collection, microfluidic devices and oil-water separation. Here, we presented unidirectional water spreading on the surface of oblique polyimide (PI) nanowires (NWs) array and directional moving of water droplet on hydrophobically treated oblique PI NWs array. Directional water transportation and fog collection were realized using the oblique PI NWs array. As the NWs array could be easily fabricated on PI films with our method, it is beneficial for the applications.