Abstract
Scales provide optical disguise, low water drag and mechanical protection to fish, enabling them to survive catastrophic environmental disasters, predators and microorganisms. The unique structures and stacking sequences of fish scales inspired the fabrication of artificial nanostructures with salient optical, interfacial and mechanical properties. Herein, we describe fish-scale bio-inspired multifunctional ZnO nanostructures that have similar morphology and structure to the cycloid scales of the Asian Arowana. These nanostructured coatings feature tunable light refraction and reflection, modulated surface wettability and damage-tolerant mechanical properties. The salient properties of these multifunctional nanostructures are promising for applications in (i) optical coatings, sensing or lens arrays for use in reflective displays, packing, advertising and solar energy harvesting; (ii) self-cleaning surfaces, including anti-smudge, anti-fouling and anti-fogging, and self-sterilizing surfaces; and (iii) mechanical/chemical barrier coatings. This study provides a low-cost and large-scale production method for the facile fabrication of these bio-inspired nanostructures and provides new insights for the development of novel functional materials for use in 'smart' structures and applications.
Highlights
In the past decade, techniques have been rapidly developed to produce ‘smart’ multifunctional nanomaterials by applying lessons learned from nature, materials termed ‘bio-inspired nanostructures’.1,2 This approach has naturally led to the development of bio-inspired multifunctional nanomaterials for use in various applications
Several researchers have described lotus-leaf-inspired self-cleaning surfaces, plant- and insect-inspired anisotropic superhydrophobic surfaces, fly-eye-inspired anti-fogging coatings, insect-inspired antireflection coatings, rose-petal- and gecko-footinspired highly adhesive surfaces, cactus-inspired fog-collecting surfaces and butterfly-wing-inspired optical materials.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. These materials are based on the fact that biological species have optimal structures that have been honed through millions of years of evolution and that exhibit amazing characteristics and swift stimulus-responsive capabilities, which provide inspiration to researchers for the design of multifunctional materials
The unique structures and functionalities of fish scales have attracted great interest, and some progress has been made in understanding their crystalline growth, morphologies, small length scale effects and fundamental properties
Summary
Techniques have been rapidly developed to produce ‘smart’ multifunctional nanomaterials by applying lessons learned from nature, materials termed ‘bio-inspired nanostructures’.1,2 This approach has naturally led to the development of bio-inspired multifunctional nanomaterials for use in various applications. The development of fish-scale bio-inspired inorganic nanostructures in this study will greatly extend the use of bio-inspired materials to applications including micromechanical devices, heavy-duty machines (as protective coatings against mechanical damage and chemical corrosion), optical devices (as optical elements), photovoltaics and low-drag or low-friction surfaces in gaseous, liquid and solid media. ZnO is a typical inorganic metal oxide that is fabricated into a variety of morphologies to meet different functional requirements.[15,16,17,18,19] Both the structure and the surface composition of the fish scales are reportedly crucial for providing low drag mobility to improve the maneuverability and speed of fish in water.[20] appropriate surface modifications were carried out on the bio-inspired nanostructured coatings. A shorter reaction time proved helpful to grow the nanostructures with lower growth stress
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