Qing'an Meng

Bio-Inspired Multistructured Conical Copper Wires for Highly Efficient Liquid Manipulation

Animal hairs are typical structured conical fibers ubiquitous in natural system that enable the manipulation of low viscosity liquid in a well-controlled manner, which serves as the fundamental structure in Chinese brush for ink delivery in a controllable manner. Here, drawing inspiration from these structure, we developed a dynamic electrochemical method that enables fabricating the anisotropic multiscale structured conical copper wire (SCCW) with controllable conicity and surface morphology. The as-prepared SCCW exhibits a unique ability for manipulating liquid with significantly high efficiency, and over 428 times greater than its own volume of liquid could be therefore operated. We propose that the boundary condition of the dynamic liquid balance behavior on conical fibers, namely, steady holding of liquid droplet at the tip region of the SCCW, makes it an excellent fibrous medium to manipulate liquid. Moreover, we demonstrate that the titling angle of the SCCW can also affect its efficiency of liquid manipulation by virtue of its mechanical rigidity, which is hardly realized by flexible natural hairs. We envision that the bio-inspired SCCW could give inspiration in designing materials and devices to manipulate liquid in a more controllable way and with high efficiency.

Highly Boosted Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity by Tuning the Underwater Wetting State of the Superhydrophobic Electrode.

By rationally designing superhydrophobic electrodes with different underwater wetting states, it is revealed that only the underwater Wenzel-Cassie coexistent state shows the clearly enhanced ability in catalyzing the oxygen reduction reaction, a typical underwater gas-consuming reaction at electrode. It is proposed that the maximizing and stabilizing the liquid/gas/solid triphase interface, endowed by the underwater Wenzel-Cassie coexistent state, plays a rather crucial role.

Bio-Inspired Direct Patterning Functional Nanothin Microlines: Controllable Liquid Transfer

Developing a general and low-cost strategy that enables direct patterning of microlines with nanometer thickness from versatile liquid-phase functional materials and precise positioning of them on various substrates remains a challenge. Herein, with inspiration from the oriental wisdom to control ink transfer by Chinese brushes, we developed a facile and general writing strategy to directly pattern various functional microlines with homogeneous distribution and nanometer-scale thickness. It is demonstrated that the width and thickness of the microlines could be well-controlled by tuning the writing method, providing guidance for the adaptation of this technique to various systems. It is also shown that various functional liquid-phase materials, such as quantum dots, small molecules, polymers, and suspensions of nanoparticles, could directly write on the substrates with intrinsic physicochemical properties well-preserved. Moreover, this technique enabled direct patterning of liquid-phase materials on certain microdomains, even in multiple layered style, thus a microdomain localized chemical reaction and the patterned surface chemical modification were enabled. This bio-inspired direct writing device will shed light on the template-free printing of various functional micropatterns, as well as the integrated functional microdevices.

Chinese brushes: From controllable liquid manipulation to template-free printing microlines

AbstractAs a traditional writing instrument for calligraphy and painting, the Chinese brush has enjoyed a high reputation over the last 5,000 years due to its ability to controllably handle liquid ink, and has been widely used to deposit ink into certain characters or figures as a means of cultural communication. In this mini-review, we first show how the key to the controllable liquid transfer in a Chinese brush lies in the anisotropic multi-scale structural features of the freshly emergent hairs. Then, drawing inspiration from this, applications in controllable liquid pumping, highly efficient liquid transfer and template-free printing microlines are addressed. We envision that the fundamentals of Chinese brushes and their applications in liquid manipulation mentioned in this review may also be extended to other liquid phase functional material systems.

Bioinspired Dynamic Wetting on Multiple Fibers

Natural fibers have versatile strategies for interacting with water media and better adapting to the local environment, and these strategies offer inspiration for the development of artificial functional fibers with diverse applications. Wetting on fibers is a dynamic liquid-moving process on/in fibrous systems with various patterns, and the process is normally driven by the structural gradient, chemical gradient, elasticity of a single fiber, or the synergistic effect of these factors in multiple fibers in an integrated system in which the spatial geometry of the fibers is involved. Compared with the directional liquid movement on a single fiber, wetting on multiple fibers in both the micro- and macroscales is particularly fascinating, with various performances, including directional liquid transport, controllable liquid transfer, efficient liquid encapsulation, and capillary-induced fibrous coalescence. Based on these properties, fibrous materials offer an alternative open system for liquid manipulation that is applicable to various functional liquid materials. Here, recent achievements in bioinspired dynamic wetting on multiple fibers are highlighted, and perspectives on future directions are presented.

Facile One-Step Strategy for Highly Boosted Microbial Extracellular Electron Transfer of the Genus Shewanella

High performance of bacterial extracellular electron transfer (EET) is essentially important for its practical applications in versatile bioelectric fields. We developed a facile one-step approach to dramatically boost the bacterial EET activity 75-fold by exogenous addition of ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid disodium salt (EDTA-2Na, 1 mM) into the electrochemical cells, where the anodic process of microbial EET was monitored. We propose that EDTA-2Na enables both the alternation of the local environment around the c-type cytochromes located on the outer membrane channels (OMCs), which therefore changes the redox behavior of OMCs in mediating the EET process, and the formation of densely packed biofilm that can further facilitate the EET process. As a synergistic effect, the highly boosted bacterial EET activity was achieved. The method shows good generality for versatile bioelectrical bacteria. We envision that the method is also applicable for constructing various bioelectric devices.

Self-assembly of alumina nanowires into controllable micro-patterns by laser-assisted solvent spreading: towards superwetting surfaces

Self-assembly of nanowires into micro-scale patterns, especially in a controlled manner, has received increasing research interest because of the wide variety of potential applications, including micro-optics and electronic devices, as well as nanomaterials-based energy conversion systems. In this contribution, a novel laser-assisted solution spreading method was developed to fabricate and self-assemble alumina nanowires (ANWs) into large-scale 3-dimensional (3D) micro-patterned surfaces in one step. Here, sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution played a dual role, both chemically etching the anodic aluminum oxide template (AAO) into ANWs and self-assembling the as-obtained ANWs into micro-patterns under capillary force. It is notable that the micro-scale patterns can be artificially controlled by introducing laser points before solution spreading on the AAO template, and thus the laser-etched area will act as the fixation point during the ANW assembly process. Moreover, the as-prepared micro-patterned ANW film exhibits typical micro-/nano-hierarchical surface topology and shows superhydrophilicity. The film can be transformed into a superhydrophobic surface by chemical modification with 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (FAS). Here, by taking advantage of wetting and dewetting processes of a solution on an AAO template, we propose a facile method that enables the fabrication of 3D micro-patterned ANW surfaces, which have superwetting properties. We envisage that this method could shed new light on the fabrication of functional micro-patterned devices where a one-dimensional nano-material and solution phase are involved.

Instability of Liquids in Flexible Fiber Brushes under Applied Pressure

We theoretically predict the stability of liquid in a model brush made of flexible fibers for cases in which liquid is supplied from an ink reservoir. The volume of the liquid in the brush increases with increasing applied pressure by the reservoir, and the liquid shows instability at a critical pressure. When the fibers are shorter than a critical length, the end of the brush opens continuously with increasing applied pressure. The volume of the liquid that hangs from the open end of the brush increases with increasing applied pressure, and the liquid drops from the brush at the critical pressure, where the weight of the liquid becomes larger than the surface tension. In contrast, when the fibers are longer than the critical length, the end of the brush opens discontinuously to the maximal extent at the critical pressure. The discontinuous unbuckling is driven by the instability arising from the fact that the bending stiffness of the water surface, which bends together with the flexible fibers, decreases as the end of the brush opens, and it is thus a unique feature of brushes of flexible fibers.