Bioinspired surface with special wettability for liquid transportation and separation

Abstract

After two hundred years development, surface and interface science becomes an active discipline with flourishing development tendency. As one of the most important phenomenon of surface science, superlyophobic/superlyophilic has attracted widespread attentions of scientists and engineers. Inspired by the natural organism, scientists have designed various biomimetic materials with special wettability, such as asymmetric spider silk surface with dynamic wetting behavior, continuous directional water transport Nepenthes alata surface et al. These superlyophobic/superlyophilic materials are widely used in self-cleaning, water collection, liquid transportation and separation and many engineering domains. Among them, the liquid transportation and separation, including separation of oil-water mixture, immiscible organic liquids mixture and oil-water emulsion, are lucubrated by more and more scientists. Many one-dimensional and two-dimensional liquid transportation and separation materials with superlyophobicity/superlyophilicity have been successfully designed and used in scientific researches and technology applications. With the principle of sustainable development, we expect that these bioinspired liquid transportation and separation materials can be applied into the actual production and living in the near future.