Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 4, Section 2, North Jianshe Road, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Campus D2 2, 66123, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2016 Aug 26;55(36):10681-5. doi: 10.1002/anie.201604868. Epub 2016 Jul 27.
Localized inclusions of liquids provide solid materials with many functions, such as self-healing, secretion, and tunable mechanical properties, in a spatially controlled mode. However, a strategy to control the distribution of liquid droplets in solid matrices directly obtained from a homogeneous solution has not been reported thus far. Herein, we describe an approach to selectively localize liquid droplets in a supramolecular gel directly obtained from its solution by using evaporative lithography. In this process, the formation of droplet-embedded domains occurs in regions of free evaporation where the non-volatile liquid is concentrated and undergoes a phase separation to create liquid droplets prior to gelation, while a homogeneous gel matrix is formed in the regions of hindered evaporation. The different regions of a coating with droplet embedment patterns display different secretion abilities, enabling the control of the directional movement of water droplets.
液滴的局域化赋予了固体材料许多功能，如自修复、分泌和可调机械性能，并且是以空间控制的模式实现的。然而，到目前为止，还没有报道一种能够直接从均匀溶液中控制液滴在固体基质中分布的策略。在这里，我们描述了一种通过蒸发光刻选择性地将液滴定位在超分子凝胶中的方法，该超分子凝胶直接由其溶液获得。在这个过程中，在自由蒸发的区域中形成液滴嵌入的畴，其中非挥发性液体浓缩并经历相分离，在凝胶化之前形成液滴，而在受阻碍的蒸发区域中形成均匀的凝胶基质。具有液滴嵌入图案的涂层的不同区域显示出不同的分泌能力，从而能够控制液滴的定向运动。
