Biomimetic 3D efficient fog harvester by synergistic wettability effect

Abstract

By collecting water in the air, it is an important way to solve the problem of water shortage in arid and semi-arid areas. Improving the efficiency of fog harvesting is still a great challenge to be overcome. The use of 3D structure is an excellent strategy, here, a Multiple-biomimetic 3D hydrophilic and superhydrophobic fog harvester with a hump-valley structure was prepared by the combination of thermal processing and spraying. Inspired by biological water collection in nature, a 3D porous sponge surface with hydrophilic valley and superhydrophobic hump was obtained by two-step treatment. This surface structure showed excellent fog harvesting performance, which was 185 % higher than the original sponge. This structure accelerates the capture, transfer and transport of droplets during the fog harvesting process and greatly improves the efficiency of fog harvest. The results show that the chemical gradient and structural gradient actuation we constructed on the melamine sponge surface can effectively improve the fog collection efficiency. A surface with a linear hump-valley mixed wettability pattern is designed, and it is proved that fog collection efficiency can be effectively improved at the droplet capture and transfer stage and transport stage respectively. This study highlights a simple and cheap integrated fog harvester material design.