Biomimetic “Water Strider Leg” with Highly Refined Nanogroove Structure and Remarkable Water-Repellent Performance

The water strider is a wonderful case that we can learn from nature to understand how to stride on the water surface. Inspired by the unique hierarchical micro/nanostructure of the water strider leg, in this article, we designed and fabricated an artificial strider leg with refined nanogroove structure by using an electrospinning and sacrificial template method. A model water strider that was equipped with four artificial legs showed remarkable water-repellent performance; namely, it could carry a load that was about 7 times heavier than its own weight. Characterization demonstrated that, even though the artificial leg did not possess a superhydrophobic surface, the numerous nanogrooves could still provide a huge supporting force for the man-made model strider. This work enlightens the development of artificial water-walking devices for exploring and monitoring the surface of water. Because of the advances of the applied materials, the devices may fulfill tasks in a harsh aquatic environment

Biomimetic “Water Strider Leg” with Highly Refined Nanogroove Structure and Remarkable Water-Repellent Performance

The water strider is a wonderful case that we can learn from nature to understand how to stride on the water surface. Inspired by the unique hierarchical micro/nanostructure of the water strider leg, in this article, we designed and fabricated an artificial strider leg with refined nanogroove structure by using an electrospinning and sacrificial template method. A model water strider that was equipped with four artificial legs showed remarkable water-repellent performance; namely, it could carry a load that was about 7 times heavier than its own weight. Characterization demonstrated that, even though the artificial leg did not possess a superhydrophobic surface, the numerous nanogrooves could still provide a huge supporting force for the man-made model strider. This work enlightens the development of artificial water-walking devices for exploring and monitoring the surface of water. Because of the advances of the applied materials, the devices may fulfill tasks in a harsh aquatic environment

Nanofibrous Adhesion: The Twin of Gecko Adhesion

Inspired by dusty spider dragline silk, we studied the adhesive interaction between artificial nanofibers and their aerosol surroundings. The nanofibers are found to be able to actively capture particulate matters from the environment, exactly as the spider dragline silk does. Examinations prove that such nanofibrous adhesion is insensitive to the chemical nature of the fibers and the physical states of the particulate matter and depends only on the fiber diameters. Such facts indicate that nanofibrous adhesion is a case of dry adhesion, mainly governed by van der Waals force, sharing the same mechanism to gecko adhesion. Nanofibrous adhesion is of great importance and has promising potential. For instance, in this work, nanofibers are fabricated into a thin and translucent filter, which has a filtration performance, as high as 95%, that easily outperformed ordinary ones. We believe that this adhesive property of nanofibers will open up broader applications in both scientific and industrial fields

Icephobicity of Penguins <i>Spheniscus Humboldti</i> and an Artificial Replica of Penguin Feather with Air-Infused Hierarchical Rough Structures

Although penguins live in the world’s coldest environment, frost and ice are seldom found on their feathers. That is to say, their feathers exhibit excellent antifrosting or anti-icing properties. We found that their air-infused microscale and nanoscale hierarchical rough structures endow the body feathers of penguins <i>Spheniscus humboldti</i> with hydrophobicity (water CA ≈ 147°) and antiadhesion characteristics (water adhesive force ≈ 23.4 μN), even for supercooled water microdroplets. A polyimide nanofiber membrane with novel microstructures was prepared on an asymmetric electrode by electrospinning, acting as an artificial replica of a penguin’s body feather. The unique microstructure of the polyimide nanofiber membrane results in a density gradient of the surface chemical substance, which is crucial to the formation of gradient changes of the contact angle and adhesive force. With decrease of the density of the surface chemical substance (i.e., with increase of the distance between adjacent fibers), the static water contact angles decreased from ∼154° to ∼105° and the water adhesion forces increased from 37 to 102 μN. Polyimide nanofibers pin a few supercooled water microdroplets. By increasing the distance of adjacent polyimide fibers, coalescence between the pinned water microdroplets was prevented. The polyimide fiber membrane achieved icephobicity