Self-Assembly of Epicuticular Waxes on Living Plant Surfaces by Atomic Force Microscopy

Koch, Kerstin; Dommisse, Aarnoud; Neinhuis, Christoph; Barthlott, Wilhelm

doi:10.1063/1.1639736

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…While cuticular waxes are the main barriers for water permeability, the transport decreases when more wax is deposited on the surface; this easily explains the ability of many plants to regenerate disrupted partial or missing wax layer. Removing epicuticular waxes also partly removes the barrier, resulting in more wax deposited in that particular area, re-establishing a new wax layer without affecting adjacent areas has been demonstrated in situ by AFM [42,45]. Given that this hypothesis is correct, the formation and regeneration of waxes is associated with terrestrial life, because there is not a water gradient that might act as driving force in an aqueous environment.…”

Section: (B) Crystallinitymentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Superhydrophobic hierarchically structured surfaces in biology: evolution, structural principles and biomimetic applications

Barthlott

Mail

Neinhuis

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

161

188

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Section: (B) Crystallinitymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…All volumes are available as pdf files under www.lotus-salvinia.de or ResearchGate. Additional surveys of the development, functionality and biomimetic applications of superhydrophobic plant surfaces and waxes were published in [3,5,28,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

Section: Database Literature Methods and Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Superhydrophobic hierarchically structured surfaces in biology: evolution, structural principles and biomimetic applications

Barthlott

Mail

Neinhuis

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

161

188

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“…Such steps are virtually undetectable by SEM (Ensikat et al 2000). Another advantage of AFM is the analysis of self-assembly of plant surface wax under environmental conditions in vivo (Koch et al 2003b(Koch et al , 2004. These investigations visualised the very early stages of wax crystal formation on leaves of various species at the molecular level for the first time.…”

Section: Self-assembly Driven Structure Formationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Structure–function relationships of the plant cuticle and cuticular waxes — a smart material?

Bargel

Koch

Cerman

et al. 2006

Functional Plant Biol.

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283

206

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This paper is part of The EvansAbstract. The cuticle is the main interface between plants and their environment. It covers the epidermis of all aerial primary parts of plant organs as a continuous extracellular matrix. This hydrophobic natural composite consists mainly of the biopolymer, cutin, and cuticular lipids collectively called waxes, with a high degree of variability in composition and structure. The cuticle and cuticular waxes exhibit a multitude of functions that enable plant life in many different terrestrial habitats and play important roles in interfacial interactions. This review highlights structure-function relationships that are the subjects of current research activities. The surface waxes often form complex crystalline microstructures that originate from self-assembly processes. The concepts and results of the analysis of model structures and the influence of template effects are critically discussed. Recent investigations of surface waxes by electron and X-ray diffraction revealed that these could be assigned to three crystal symmetry classes, while the background layer is not amorphous, but has an orthorhombic order. In addition, advantages of the characterisation of formation of model wax types on a molecular scale are presented. Epicuticular wax crystals may cause extreme water repellency and, in addition, a striking self-cleaning property. The principles of wetting and upto-date concepts of the transfer of plant surface properties to biomimetic technical applications are reviewed. Finally, biomechanical studies have demonstrated that the cuticle is a mechanically important structure, whose properties are dynamically modified by the plant in response to internal and external stimuli. Thus, the cuticle combines many aspects attributed to smart materials.

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“…Wax film formation has been investigated on a living plant surface by atomic force microscopy (AFM, shown in Fig. 8 ) [ 40 , 43 ]. Such investigations show that wax films are composed of several monomolecular layers, with thicknesses up to several hundred nanometers.…”

Section: Chemistry Of Plant Surfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant Surfaces: Structures and Functions for Biomimetic Innovations

et al. 2017

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An overview of plant surface structures and their evolution is presented. It combines surface chemistry and architecture with their functions and refers to possible biomimetic applications. Within some 3.5 billion years biological species evolved highly complex multifunctional surfaces for interacting with their environments: some 10 million living prototypes (i.e., estimated number of existing plants and animals) for engineers. The complexity of the hierarchical structures and their functionality in biological organisms surpasses all abiotic natural surfaces: even superhydrophobicity is restricted in nature to living organisms and was probably a key evolutionary step with the invasion of terrestrial habitats some 350–450 million years ago in plants and insects. Special attention should be paid to the fact that global environmental change implies a dramatic loss of species and with it the biological role models. Plants, the dominating group of organisms on our planet, are sessile organisms with large multifunctional surfaces and thus exhibit particular intriguing features. Superhydrophilicity and superhydrophobicity are focal points in this work. We estimate that superhydrophobic plant leaves (e.g., grasses) comprise in total an area of around 250 million km2, which is about 50% of the total surface of our planet. A survey of structures and functions based on own examinations of almost 20,000 species is provided, for further references we refer to Barthlott et al. (Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 374: 20160191, 1). A basic difference exists between aquatic non-vascular and land-living vascular plants; the latter exhibit a particular intriguing surface chemistry and architecture. The diversity of features is described in detail according to their hierarchical structural order. The first underlying and essential feature is the polymer cuticle superimposed by epicuticular wax and the curvature of single cells up to complex multicellular structures. A descriptive terminology for this diversity is provided. Simplified, the functions of plant surface characteristics may be grouped into six categories: (1) mechanical properties, (2) influence on reflection and absorption of spectral radiation, (3) reduction of water loss or increase of water uptake, moisture harvesting, (4) adhesion and non-adhesion (lotus effect, insect trapping), (5) drag and turbulence increase, or (6) air retention under water for drag reduction or gas exchange (Salvinia effect). This list is far from complete. A short overview of the history of bionics and the impressive spectrum of existing and anticipated biomimetic applications are provided. The major challenge for engineers and materials scientists, the durability of the fragile nanocoatings, is also discussed.

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Self-Assembly of Epicuticular Waxes on Living Plant Surfaces by Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract: Electrical transport and mechanical properties of alkylsilane self-assembled monolayers on silicon surfaces probed by atomic force microscopy

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

Superhydrophobic hierarchically structured surfaces in biology: evolution, structural principles and biomimetic applications

Superhydrophobic hierarchically structured surfaces in biology: evolution, structural principles and biomimetic applications

Structure–function relationships of the plant cuticle and cuticular waxes — a smart material?

Plant Surfaces: Structures and Functions for Biomimetic Innovations

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