Trapping air at the solid–liquid interface is a promising strategy for reducing frictional drag and desalting water, although it has thus far remained unachievable without perfluorinated coatings. Here, we report on biomimetic microtextures composed of doubly reentrant cavities (DRCs) and reentrant cavities (RCs) that can enable even intrinsically wetting materials to entrap air for long periods upon immersion in liquids. Using SiO2/Si wafers as the model system, we demonstrate that while the air entrapped in simple cylindrical cavities immersed in hexadecane is lost after 0.2 s, the air entrapped in the DRCs remained intact even after 27 days (~106 s). To understand the factors and mechanisms underlying this ten-million-fold enhancement, we compared the behaviors of DRCs, RCs and simple cavities of circular and non-circular shapes on immersion in liquids of low and high vapor pressures through high-speed imaging, confocal microscopy, and pressure cells. Those results might advance the development of coating-free liquid repellent surfaces.

Omniphobic surfaces, that is, which repel all known liquids, have proven of value in applications ranging from membrane distillation to underwater drag reduction. A limitation of currently employed omniphobic surfaces is that they rely on perfluorinated coatings, increasing cost and environmental impact and preventing applications in harsh environments. Thus, there is a keen interest in rendering conventional materials, such as plastics, omniphobic by micro/nanotexturing rather than via chemical makeup, with notable success having been achieved for silica surfaces with doubly reentrant micropillars. However, we found a critical limitation of microtextures comprising pillars that they undergo catastrophic wetting transitions (apparent contact angles, θ → 0° from θ > 90°) in the presence of localized physical damages/defects or on immersion in wetting liquids. In response, a doubly reentrant cavity microtexture is introduced, which can prevent catastrophic wetting transitions in the presence of localized structural damage/defects or on immersion in wetting liquids. Remarkably, our silica surfaces with doubly reentrant cavities could exhibit apparent contact angles, θ ≈ 135° for mineral oil, where the intrinsic contact angle, θ ≈ 20°. Further, when immersed in mineral oil or water, doubly reentrant microtextures in silica (θ ≈ 40° for water) were not penetrated even after several days of investigation. Thus, microtextures comprising doubly reentrant cavities might enable applications of conventional materials without chemical modifications, especially in scenarios that are prone to localized damages or immersion in wetting liquids, for example, hydrodynamic drag reduction and membrane distillation.

Cavitation refers to the formation and collapse of vapor bubbles near solid boundaries in high-speed flows, such as ship propellers and pumps. During this process, cavitation bubbles focus fluid energy on the solid surface by forming high-speed jets, leading to damage and downtime of machinery. In response, numerous surface treatments to counteract this effect have been explored, including perfluorinated coatings and surface hardening, but they all succumb to cavitation erosion eventually. Here, we report on biomimetic gas-entrapping microtextured surfaces (GEMS) that robustly entrap air when immersed in water regardless of the wetting nature of the substrate. Crucially, the entrapment of air inside the cavities repels cavitation bubbles away from the surface, thereby preventing cavitation damage. We provide mechanistic insights by treating the system as a potential flow problem of a multi-bubble system. Our findings present a possible avenue for mitigating cavitation erosion through the application of inexpensive and environmentally friendly materials.

We demonstrate that the assessment of omniphobicity of surfaces derived from intrinsically wetting materials can be misleading, if solely based on the measurement of contact angles. Specifically, localized defects in microtextures consisting of pillars may lead to the spontaneous loss of omniphobicity and detecting them through contact angles can be difficult. We also demonstrate that the immersion of those surfaces into probe liquids may serve as a simple and quick 'litmus' test for omniphobicity. Thus, immersion as the additional criterion for omniphobicity might prove itself useful in the context of large-scale manufacturing.

Despite the remarkable evolutionary success of insects at colonizing every conceivable terrestrial and aquatic habitat, only five Halobates (Heteroptera: Gerridae) species (~0.0001% of all known insect species) have succeeded at colonizing the open ocean-the largest biome on earth. this remarkable evolutionary achievement likely required unique adaptations for them to survive and thrive in the challenging oceanic environment. For the first time, we explore the morphology and behavior of an open-ocean Halobates germanus and a related coastal species H. hayanus to understand mechanisms of these adaptations. We provide direct experimental evidence based on high-speed videos which reveal that Halobates exploit their specialized and self-groomed body hair to achieve extreme water repellence, which facilitates rapid skating and plastron respiration under water. Moreover, the grooming behavior and presence of cuticular wax aids in the maintenance of superhydrophobicity. further, reductions of their body mass and size enable them to achieve impressive accelerations (~400 ms −2) and reaction times (~12 ms) to escape approaching predators or environmental threats and are crucial to their survival under harsh marine conditions. These findings might also inspire rational strategies for developing liquid-repellent surfaces for drag reduction, water desalination, and preventing bio-fouling. The proliferation of invertebrate taxa in the ocean during the Cambrian explosion eventually led to their colonization on land, where insects first appeared ~479 million years (Myr) ago 1 to eventually dominate various terrestrial ecosystems 2,3. With an estimated ~5.5 million extant species 4 , insects comprise 80% of all known metazoans, making them the dominant animals on Earth 5. Despite their successful colonization of both terrestrial and aquatic habitats, only a small number of insects (~0.5% of total species) have been found in marine environments, mostly in nearshore habitats, with only a handful of Halobates (~0.0001% of insect species) ultimately colonizing the open ocean, the largest biome on Earth 6-8. Halobates is a member of the family Gerridae, which evolved nearly 55 Myr ago 6,9. Some 48 species of Halobates are known to occur in tropical and subtropical seas and oceans that cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface. Most of these species are found in mangrove and near-shore habitats and two even live in freshwater, whereas five live on the surface of the open ocean. The fact that only a mere 0.0001% of insect species were able to colonize the largest habitat on Earth indicates that there must have been formidable environmental challenges for oceanic Halobates to overcome in order to live there. Halobates most likely evolved from an estuarine or mangrove ancestor that was washed out to the sea and became adapted to survive in the open ocean 8,10. Freshwater relatives of sea-skaters are often found on placid water bodies such as small ponds, lakes or slow-flowing streams, whereas many tropical species can be found

The average vapor fluxes, J, across three sets of AAO membranes with average nanochannel diameters (and porosities) centered at 80 nm (32%), 100 nm (37%), and 160 nm (57%) varied by < 25%, while we had expected them to scale with the porosities. Our multiscale simulations unveiled how the high thermal conductivity of the AAO membranes reduced the effective temperature drive for the mass transfer. Our results highlight the limitations of AAO membranes for DCMD and might advance the rational development of desalination membranes.

We present microfabrication protocols for rendering intrinsically wetting materials repellent to liquids (omniphobic) by creating gas-entrapping microtextures (GEMs) on them comprising cavities and pillars with reentrant and doubly reentrant features. Specifically, we use SiO 2 /Si as the model system and share protocols for two-dimensional (2D) designing, photolithography, isotropic/anisotropic etching techniques, thermal oxide growth, piranha cleaning, and storage towards achieving those microtextures. Even though the conventional wisdom indicates that roughening intrinsically wetting surfaces (θ o < 90°) renders them even more wetting (θ r < θ o < 90°), GEMs demonstrate liquid repellence despite the intrinsic wettability of the substrate. For instance, despite the intrinsic wettability of silica θ o ≈ 40° for the water/air system, and θ o ≈ 20° for the hexadecane/ air system, GEMs comprising cavities entrap air robustly on immersion in those liquids, and the apparent contact angles for the droplets are θ r > 90°. The reentrant and doubly reentrant features in the GEMs stabilize the intruding liquid meniscus thereby trapping the liquid-solid-vapor system in metastable air-filled states (Cassie states) and delaying wetting transitions to the thermodynamically-stable fully-filled state (Wenzel state) by, for instance, hours to months. Similarly, SiO 2 /Si surfaces with arrays of reentrant and doubly reentrant micropillars demonstrate extremely high contact angles (θ r ≈ 150°-160°) and low contact angle hysteresis for the probe liquids, thus characterized as superomniphobic. However, on immersion in the same liquids, those surfaces dramatically lose their superomniphobicity and get fully-filled within <1 s. To address this challenge, we present protocols for hybrid designs that comprise arrays of doubly reentrant pillars surrounded by walls with doubly reentrant profiles. Indeed, hybrid microtextures entrap air on immersion in the probe liquids. To summarize, the protocols described here should enable the investigation of GEMs in the context of achieving omniphobicity without chemical coatings, such as perfluorocarbons, which might unlock the scope of inexpensive common materials for applications as omniphobic materials. Silica microtextures could also serve as templates for soft materials.

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