Department of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal576104, India.
Centre for Applied Nanosciences (CAN), Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal576104, India.
Langmuir. 2023 Feb 7;39(5):1987-1996. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c03051. Epub 2023 Jan 25.
Wettability-tailored tracks are emerging as an efficient approach to collecting and transporting underwater air bubbles as well as water from the mist. However, tailoring the surface wettability by modifying the surface structural features via physiochemical methods to create superhydrophilic-superhydrophobic contrast tracks suffers from long-term durability issues, while the emerging liquid-infused slippery surface has inherent design engineering limitations and issues from infused oil depletion. Herein, we demonstrate that by selective silicone oil grafting onto the glass substrate, it is possible to create a wettability contrast of ∼ 43°. Further, we illustrate the application of such tracks for underwater air bubble capturing and transportation in an aqueous medium with surface tension ranging from 72 to 43.5 mN/m. In addition, the potential of these nonadhesive and adhesive tracks for water collection from the mist is shown and the critical effect of the track dimension and intertrack spacing on the water harvesting rate is investigated in detail. The study illustrates that the nonadhesive nature of the oil-grafted region enables the easy transport of underwater air bubbles as well as water from the flow medium and thus offers an easy and facile approach to creating substrates for underwater air bubble collection and water harvesting.
润湿性定制轨道作为一种有效的方法，用于收集和输送水下气泡以及雾中的水。然而，通过物理化学方法修改表面结构特征来定制表面润湿性，从而创造超亲水-超疏水对比轨道，会存在长期耐久性问题，而新兴的液体注入滑润表面则存在固有设计工程限制和注入油损耗问题。在本文中，我们证明了通过选择性地将硅油接枝到玻璃基底上，可以实现约 43°的润湿性对比。此外，我们还说明了这种轨道在表面张力范围为 72 至 43.5 mN/m 的水中用于水下气泡捕获和输送的应用。此外，还展示了这些非粘性和粘性轨道从雾中收集水的潜力，并详细研究了轨道尺寸和轨道间距对水收集率的关键影响。该研究表明，油接枝区域的非粘性性质使得水下气泡以及水流中的水易于输送，从而为水下气泡收集和水收集提供了一种简单易行的方法。
