Recent Advances in TiO₂‐Based Nanostructured Surfaces with Controllable Wettability and Adhesion

Abstract

Bioinspired surfaces with special wettability and adhesion have attracted great interest in both fundamental research and industry applications. Various kinds of special wetting surfaces have been constructed by adjusting the topographical structure and chemical composition. Here, recent progress of the artificial superhydrophobic surfaces with high contrast in solid/liquid adhesion has been reviewed, with a focus on the bioinspired construction and applications of one-dimensional (1D) TiO2-based surfaces. In addition, the significant applications related to artificial super-wetting/antiwetting TiO2-based structure surfaces with controllable adhesion are summarized, e.g., self-cleaning, friction reduction, anti-fogging/icing, microfluidic manipulation, fog/water collection, oil/water separation, anti-bioadhesion, and micro-templates for patterning. Finally, the current challenges and future prospects of this renascent and rapidly developing field, especially with regard to 1D TiO2-based surfaces with special wettability and adhesion, are proposed and discussed.

Uni‐Directional Transportation on Peristome‐Mimetic Surfaces for Completely Wetting Liquids

“…3) Thel eft-right symmetry of the anisotropic wetting property on grooved structures limits its transportation ability. Unlike the canonical predictions for low surface tension liquids spreading symmetrically on ah igh-energy surface, [19] liquids with varied surface tensions and viscosities can propagate in as ingle preferred direction and pin in all others.S ignificantly,t he complexly wetting liquid, FC-72 (perfluorohexane), with as urface tension of 9.5 mn m À1 ,c an spontaneously and uni-directionally spread on the peristomemimetic surface.T he micro-scaled overflow or anti-overflow behavior on the peristome-mimetic surface is visualized and demonstrated with X-ray microscopy,w here overflow-controlled liquid uni-directional spreading mechanism is proposed. [18] Herein, inspired by the spontaneously uni-directional transportation mechanism on the peristome surface of Nepenthes alata, [6] we mimic the surface morphology of the peristome surface through high-resolution stereo-lithography to fabricate microcavity-arrayed substrates with varied surface energies.O wing to the stereo-lithography fabrication method, sophisticated structures can be fabricated on demand.…”

Micro‐/Nanostructured Interface for Liquid Manipulation and Its Applications

“…The most well‐known self‐cleaning surface is the lotus leaf. As shown in Figure b,c, micropapillae, which are covered with branch‐like nanostructure, are randomly distributed on the surface of lotus leaf, resulting in a “lotus” state (a special case of the Cassie state) . Moreover, the presence of hydrophobic epicuticular waxes on the surface endows lotus with superhydrophobicity.…”

Recent advances on smart TiO₂ nanotube platforms for sustainable drug delivery applications

“…[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] In order to improve the technology of TNT fabrication, various electrochemical protocols were addressed to support it, which involve aqueous and organic electrolytes with different chemical compositions and electrochemical conditions. The electrochemical anodization process is carried out usually in electrolytes containing some fluoride ions to fabricate TNT layers.…”