Superlyophilic Interfaces and Their Applications

Abstract

Superlyophilic interfaces denote interfaces displaying strong affinity to diverse liquids, including superhydrophilic, superoleophilic, and superamphiphilic interfaces. When coming in contact with these interfaces, water or oil droplets tend to spread completely with contact angles close to 0°, presenting versatile applications including self‐cleaning, antifogging, controllable liquid transport, liquid separation, and so forth. Inspired by nature, scientists have developed various kinds of artificial superlyophilic (SLPL) interfaces in the past decades. In terms of dimensional characteristics, the artificial SLPL interfaces can be divided into four categories: i) 0D particles, whose dispersibility or catalytic performance can be notably enhanced by superlyophilicity; ii) 1D micro‐/nanofibers or nanotubes/channels, which can efficiently transfer liquids with SLPL interfaces; iii) 2D flat SLPL interfaces, on which different functional molecules can be deposited uniformly, forming ultrathin and smooth films; and iv) 3D structures, which can be obtained by either constructing 0D, 1D, or 2D SLPL materials separately or directly fabricating random SLPL frameworks, and can always be used as functional coatings or bulk materials. Here, natural and artificial SLPL interfaces are briefly introduced, followed by a short discussion of the limit between lyophilicity and lyophobicity, and then a snapshot of methods to generate SLPL interfaces is given. Specific focus is placed on recent achievements of constructing SLPL interfaces from zero to three dimensions. Following that, broad applications of SLPL interfaces in commercial areas will be introduced. Finally, a short summary and outlook for future challenges in this field is presented.

Wettability and Applications of Nanochannels

“…With the integrated influence of surface energy and Laplace pressure in wettable nanochannels, a liquid drop inclines to quickly spread on the interface. In contrast, in the case of nonwettable nanochannels, liquid drop tends to shrink …”

Bioinspired Surfaces with Superamphiphobic Properties: Concepts, Synthesis, and Applications

“…Since Young's equation was introduced in 1805, areas on wetting and wettability have been studied for more than two centuries. Nowadays, super‐antiwetting property, including superhydrophobicity, superoleophobicity, and superamphiphobicity, has received a great deal of attention . Superamphiphobicity refers to the state that possesses contact angles higher than 150° and sliding angle lower than 10° for both water and oil.…”

Transparent Surfactant/Epoxy Composite Coatings with Self‐Healing and Superhydrophilic Properties

“…The wetting behavior of solid and liquid surfaces has been studied extensively. Superhydrophilic surfaces (whose water droplet contact angle is <5° within 0.5 s) have attracted considerable attention due to their special properties and their broad range of applications in self‐cleaning, anti‐fogging, anti‐fouling, oil–water separation, anticorrosion, fog collection, and organic solar cells . To prepare superhydrophilic surfaces, a lot of effort has been devoted using different strategies, including TiO 2 ‐based coatings, etching, hydrothermal treatment and layer‐by‐layer assembly .…”

“…The wetting behavior of solid and liquid surfaces has been studied extensively. Superhydrophilic surfaces (whose water droplet contact angle is <5° within 0.5 s) have attracted considerable attention due to their special properties and their broad range of applications in self-cleaning, [1,2] anti-fogging, [3,4] anti-fouling, [5,6] oil-water separation, [7,8] anticorrosion, [9] fog www.advancedsciencenews.com www.mme-journal.de…”