Multifunctional Engineering Aluminum Surfaces for Self‐Propelled Anti‐Condensation

Abstract

Learning from nature will give us some important inspiration in designing multifunctional materials and in developing new technology. Self-propelled motion is ubiquitous in nature. Special wetting surfaces have considerable technological potential for various applications arising from their extreme repellent properties toward liquids. Here, we reported the spontaneous anti-condensation on low adhesive superamphiphobic engineered Al surfaces. The mechanism of anti-condensation was also investigated in this work. The dropwise condensation on engineering metals was removed autonomously without any external forces arising from the out-of-plane jumping motion of the coalesced drops. The self-propelled jumping motion of merged drops is driven by the surface energy released upon drop coalescence. Besides the anti-condensation, the resultant Al surfaces also showed robust repellency toward various polar, nonpolar liquids and even corrosive liquids, demonstrating stable superamphiphobicity, anti-corrosion, and self-cleaning properties. This will extend the practical applications of engineering metals in the fields of anti-icing and heat exchange.

Bioinspired Surfaces with Superwettability for Anti‐Icing and Ice‐Phobic Application: Concept, Mechanism, and Design

“…This finding offers insights into the role of optimized surfaces . Herein, by controlling the roughness, tailoring bionic nanofilms, sharpening the nanostructures, or designing proper surfaces are necessary to achieve the desired CMDSP functional surface . Recent observations verified that hierarchical SHS possess an excellent property of CMDSP .…”

Bioinspired Special Wettability Surfaces: From Fundamental Research to Water Harvesting Applications

“…In recent decades, reports on bioinspired water‐harvesting materials emerged rapidly. For example, through rational design and fabrication of hierarchical micro‐/nanostructures and low‐surface energy, good progress has been made in obtaining robust surfaces with excellent condensate microdrop self‐propelling (CMDSP) performance . The CMDSP is potentially useful for water collection and transport.…”

Programming Multiphase Media Superwetting States in the Oil–Water–Air System: Evolutions in Hydrophobic–Hydrophilic Surface Heterogeneous Chemistry

“…Superwetting control emerged as a popular topic in fundamental interface science field and can directly affect specific effects on solid surface in certain environment media, and would provide a powerful toolbox to solve complex and challenging problems in academic and industrial fields, [ 1–7 ] for example, efficiency and selectivity in catalysis process, [ 8,9 ] controllability in printing and patterning, [ 10,11 ] and sensitivity in surface analysis. [ 12,13 ] Although considerable attempts have recently been made to design and construct multifunctional superwetting surfaces, [ 4,14–20 ] especially for superantiwetting surfaces, [ 21–26 ] the defined superantiwetting states can only perform in single certain environment media, causing most of the significant interfacial applications to not be achieved in different media. For example, an inevitable antifouling failure is usually observed on dry underwater superoleophobic surfaces where oils can easily wet and contaminate the whole superhydrophilic surface in air.…”

“…DOI: 10.1002/adma.202004875 considerable attempts have recently been made to design and construct multifunctional superwetting surfaces, [4,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] especially for superantiwetting surfaces, [21][22][23][24][25][26] the defined superantiwetting states can only perform in single certain environment media, causing most of the significant interfacial applications to not be achieved in different media. For example, an inevitable antifouling failure is usually observed on dry underwater superoleophobic surfaces where oils can easily wet and conta minate the whole superhydrophilic surface in air.…”