The
world is facing a global issue of water scarcity where two-thirds
of the population does not have access to safe drinking water. Water
harvesting from the ambient environment has a potential equivalent
to ∼10% of the fresh water available on the earth’s
surface, but its efficiency requires a special control of surface
morphology. We report a novel facile physicochemical hybrid method
that combines femtosecond laser structuring with hydrothermal treatment
to create a surface with a well-arranged hierarchical nanoneedle structures.
Polydimethylsiloxane treatment of the thus-produced hierarchical structures
nurtured superhydrophobic functionality with a very low water sliding
angle (∼3°) and a high water adhesion ability. About 2.2
times higher water-collection efficiency was achieved using hierarchical
structures over untreated flat Ti surfaces of the same area under
a given experimental condition. The comparison of water-collection
behavior with other samples showed that the improved efficiency is
due to the structure, and wettability induced superior water attraction
and removal ability. Moreover, a uniform water condensation under
low humidity (28%) is achieved, which has potential applications in
harvesting water from arid environments and in high-precision drop
control.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.