Cactus-Inspired Janus Membrane with a Conical Array of Wettability Gradient for Efficient Fog Collection.

Abstract

Fog collection plays an important role in alleviating the global water shortage. Despite great progress in creating bionic surfaces to collect fog, water droplets still could adhere to the microscale hydrophilic region and reach the thermodynamic stable state before falling, which delays the transport of water and hinders the continuous fog collection. Inspired by lotus leaves and cactuses, we designed a Janus membrane that functions to both collect fog from the air and transport it to a certain region. The Janus membrane with opposite wettability contains conical microcolumns with a wettability gradient and hydrophilic copper mesh surface. The apexes of conical microcolumns are superhydrophobic and the rest are hydrophobic. The fog droplets were deposited, coalesced, and directionally transported to the bottom of the conical microcolumns. Then, the droplets unidirectionally passed through the membrane and flowed into the water film on the surface of the copper mesh. The asymmetric structural and wettability merits endow the Janus membrane with an improved fog collection of ∼7.05 g/cm2/h. The study is valuable for designing and developing fluid control equipment in fog collection, liquid manipulation, and microfluidics.