Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering , Beihang University (BUAA) , Beijing 100191 , P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Jan 30;11(4):4507-4513. doi: 10.1021/acsami.8b15901. Epub 2019 Jan 18.
The bioinspired nanocone-decorated three-dimensional fiber network (N3D) can be fabricated, where an original 3D web is designed, inspired by some newest research findings of spider web, and it is decorated with hydrophilic zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocones inspired by cactus spine. Multilevel high specific surface area exposure on fiber together with the hydrophilic decoration enables it to be more attractive to water molecules. These nanocones can capture fog droplet, generate coalesced droplet, and accordingly make droplet transport efficient because of Laplace pressure difference. Especially, a novel mechanism revealed that after the nanocone-decorated fiber was wetted, that is, a water film formed and immediately broke up into droplets, owing to the force relating to Rayleigh instability. Consequent lower retention surface realizes the formation of fast continuous water flow, rather than the traditional intermittent course. Thus, outstanding fog-harvesting efficiency was achieved on N3D, for example, probably reaching 865.1 kg/m/day, where the mass of collected water within 2 h can raise up to over 240 times higher than the weight of an original 3D web without nanocones. Such a bioinspired ZnO nanocone-decorated 3D fiber network (i.e., N3D) has potential application to harvest fog water for production or living, for example, water recondensation in cooling water towers and in agricultural irrigation systems, even in water-deficient countries.
仿生纳米锥修饰的三维纤维网络（N3D）可以制备，其中一个原始的 3D 网络是受蜘蛛网的最新研究成果启发而设计的，并以仙人掌刺启发的亲水性氧化锌（ZnO）纳米锥装饰。纤维上多层次的高比表面积暴露和亲水性修饰使其更能吸引水分子。这些纳米锥可以捕获雾滴，产生聚并的液滴，从而由于拉普拉斯压差使液滴输送更有效率。特别是，揭示了一种新的机制，即在纳米锥修饰的纤维被润湿后，即形成水膜并立即由于瑞利不稳定性的力而破裂成液滴，从而导致较低的保留表面实现快速连续的水流形成，而不是传统的间歇过程。因此，N3D 实现了出色的雾采集效率，例如，可能达到 865.1 kg/m/day，其中在 2 小时内收集的水量比没有纳米锥的原始 3D 网络的重量高出 240 多倍。这种仿生 ZnO 纳米锥修饰的 3D 纤维网络（即 N3D）具有用于收集雾水的潜在应用，例如，在冷却塔和农业灌溉系统中的冷却水再冷凝，甚至在缺水的国家。
