Recently, smart surfaces with switchable wettability have aroused much attention. However, only single surface chemistry or the microstructure can be changed on these surfaces, which significantly limits their wetting performances, controllability, and applications. A new surface with both tunable surface microstructure and chemistry was prepared by grafting poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) onto the pillar-structured shape memory polymer on which multiple wetting states from superhydrophilicity to superhydrophobicity can be reversibly and precisely controlled by synergistically regulating the surface microstructure and chemistry. Meanwhile, based on the excellent controllability, we also showed the application of the surface as a rewritable platform, and various gradient wettings can be obtained. This work presents for the first time a surface with controllability in both surface chemistry and microstructure, which starts some new ideas for the design of novel superwetting materials.
The authors developed a very simple alignment technique by which highly aligned polymer nanofibers of length >25cm were electrospun over a lateral range as large as 63cm. This technique is based on a modified configuration, application of a tip collector, and sideward ejection. The salient feature of the electrospinning process is the production of single nanofibers one by one, which was clearly confirmed by real-time images taken by a high-speed camera. Aligned polycaprolactone, polyacrylonitrile, and carbon nanofibers were prepared by this method.
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