Guo Jiaxin, Jiang Mengnan, Li Xiaolu, Farid Muhammad Usman, Deka Bhaskar Jyoti, Zhang Baoping, Sun Jiawei, Wang Zuankai, Yi Chunhai, Wong Pak Wai, Jeong Sanghyun, Gu Boram, An Alicia Kyoungjin
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
Nat Commun. 2024 Sep 5;15(1):7750. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-52108-9.
Omniphobic membranes, due to their exceptional properties, have drawn significant attention for overcoming the bottleneck in membrane distillation (MD) technology. This study demonstrates an innovative method for fabricating an omniphobic membrane that is simple and facile compared to other methods such as wet/dry etching and photolithography. The surface morphology of springtails was imitated using electrospraying technique to coat a polyvinylidene fluoride substrate with concave-shaped polystyrene beads that were successfully developed by controlling the electrical traction (voltage) and air resistance (humidity). Then, the lipid coating of springtail surfaces was mimicked by dip-coating the membrane in a low-toxicity short-chain perfluoropolyether lubricant. The concave structure's tiny air pockets increased membrane hydrophobicity significantly, indicated by the fact that the first round of water bouncing took only 16.3 ms. Finally, in MD treatment of seawater containing 1.0 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate, the optimized omniphobic membrane maintained a stable 99.9% salt rejection rate.
由于其优异的性能，超疏水膜在克服膜蒸馏（MD）技术瓶颈方面引起了广泛关注。本研究展示了一种制备超疏水膜的创新方法，与湿/干蚀刻和光刻等其他方法相比，该方法简单易行。利用电喷雾技术模仿跳虫的表面形态，通过控制电牵引力（电压）和空气阻力（湿度），成功地在聚偏氟乙烯基底上涂覆了凹形聚苯乙烯珠。然后，通过将膜浸涂在低毒短链全氟聚醚润滑剂中，模拟跳虫表面的脂质涂层。凹形结构的微小气穴显著增加了膜的疏水性，第一轮水弹跳仅需16.3毫秒即可证明这一点。最后，在含有1.0 mM十二烷基硫酸钠的海水MD处理中，优化后的超疏水膜保持了稳定的99.9%的脱盐率。
