A bionic integrated system (BIS) with efficient water transport and fog water collection behavior

Abstract

It is known that droplet spontaneous transport has broad application prospects in the field of water collection, but issues such as slow transport speed and short distance still exist. Inspired by sarracenia, wheat awns, and cactus spines, a bionic integrated system (BIS) consisting of a conical spine, microchannels, and conical barbs was fabricated through the laser etching of aluminum sheets. Additionally, a superhydrophobic substrate (SHBS) was created by modifying stearic acid. The bionic integrated system (BIS) was combined with the superhydrophobic substrate (SHBS), resulting in the construction of the SHBS@BIS array fog collector, which was designed to achieve efficient water collection under the synergistic effect of a multi-gradient coupling mechanism. The fog collection performance of the SHBS@BIS array fog collector was deeply investigated in this study. Through optimization and reasonable design of the surface parameter structure of the microchannel, the fog collection efficiency of the SHBS@BIS array fog collector was significantly enhanced to 8250 mg cm⁻² h⁻¹, which was 3.1 times higher than that of the original sample OS. This result not only demonstrated the significant advantages of samples with microchannels and barb structures in fog capture and transport but also further highlighted the superiority of the fog collector in fog collection efficiency when compared with recent related work. The multi-functional integration and intelligent control of fog collectors will also become a research focus to meet the growing demand for water and energy.