Bioinspired superwetting materials for water manipulation

Abstract

AbstractWater manipulation is crucial for a wide range of engineering applications, such as microfluidics, heat transfer, desalination, and water harvesting. Despite scientific achievements in the past few decades, it remains challenging to achieve efficient and well‐controllable droplet transport in practical applications. In nature, creatures have evolved ingenious wisdom to manipulate water to adapt to their environments. Learning from nature and combining bioinspirations with advanced manufacturing technology are promising to fabricate excellent materials for directional water transport. In this review, we summarize the mechanisms of water droplet manipulation on various biological surfaces and review the recent progress in fabricating hydrophilic surfaces, hybrid hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces, and slippery lubricant‐infused porous surfaces (SLIPSs) with bioinspiration for water manipulation. These novel bioinspired materials have great potential in many fields, especially for water harvesting. Finally, current challenges and future perspectives in this field are proposed.