(Adv. Mater.) Controlling Water Capture of Bio-inspired Fibers with Hump Structures
writer：X. Tian, Y. Chen, Y. Zheng*, H. Bai, & L. Jiang*
keywords：Bioinspired, Polymer, Control, Water collection
source：期刊
specific source：Adv. Mater. 2011, 23, 5486-5491
Issue time：2011年
we show that geometrically
engineered thin fi bers possess much stronger water capture
ability than previously anticipated, which is attributed to an
unusual three-phase contact line (TCL) extending axially along
the fi bers, resulting from spider silk-inspired hump structures
on their surface. The hump structures can improve the stability
of TCL through the combination of “ slope ” and “ curvature ”
effects, which provides suffi cient capillary adhesion to pin the
hanging drops. We demonstrate that the pinning effects as
well as the TCL length can be modifi ed by the characteristic
geometry of the humps, and can thus be employed to tailor the
adhesion of fi bers. Our fi ndings offer insights into solid–liquid
adhesion of curve-structured fi bers, and are helpful to design
smart materials for promising applications in water collection
engineering or microdevices.