Tong Lv

Anti-corrosive hierarchical structured copper mesh film with superhydrophilicity and underwater low adhesive superoleophobicity for highly efficient oil–water separation

Recently, oil–water separation has become an important subject due to the increasing incidence of oil spill accidents. Separating films with underwater superoleophobicity have aroused much interest due to their special oil-repellent and anti-fouling properties. Good environmental stability, such as anti-corrosive ability, is very important for these films in practical applications, because water is in contact with these films intimately during the separating process. Until now, almost all reported separating films with anti-corrosive abilities are made of polymers, and related inorganic separating materials are still rare. In this work, through a simple electrodeposition process, a novel porous structured copper mesh film was prepared. The film shows superhydrophilicity in air and low-adhesive superoleophobicity in water. Using the film for oil–water separation, the separation efficiency is higher than 99% for various oil–water mixtures. Importantly, after immersion into corrosive solutions such as acidic and basic solutions, the wetting properties and the separating performances of the film showed no apparent variation, indicating that the as-prepared film has a good environmental stability. This paper reports a new separating film for oil–water mixtures; the special anti-corrosive properties allow it to be used in many other practical applications, such as anti-fouling, filtration and sewage treatment.

Self-Restoration of Superhydrophobicity on Shape Memory Polymer Arrays with Both Crushed Microstructure and Damaged Surface Chemistry.

Recently, self-healing superhydrophobic surfaces have become a new research focus due to their recoverable wetting performances and wide applications. However, until now, on almost all reported surfaces, only one factor (surface chemistry or microstructure) can be restored. In this paper, a new superhydrophobic surface with self-healing ability in both crushed microstructure and damaged surface chemistry is prepared by creating lotus-leaves-like microstructure on the epoxy shape memory polymer (SMP). Through a simple heating process, the crushed surface microstructure, the damaged surface chemistry, and the surface superhydrophobicity that are destroyed under the external pressure and/or O2 plasma action can be recovered, demonstrating that the obtained superhydrophobic surface has a good self-healing ability in both of the two factors that govern the surface wettability. The special self-healing ability is ascribed to the good shape memory effect of the polymer and the reorganization effect of surface molecules. This paper reports the first use of SMP material to demonstrate the self-healing ability of surface superhydrophobicity, which opens up some new perspectives in designing self-healing superhydrophobic surfaces. Given the properties of this surface, it could be used in many applications, such as self-cleaning coatings, microfluidic devices, and biodetection.

Superhydrophobic Surface With Shape Memory Micro/Nanostructure and Its Application in Rewritable Chip for Droplet Storage

Recently, superhydrophobic surfaces with tunable wettability have aroused much attention. Noticeably, almost all present smart performances rely on the variation of surface chemistry on static micro/nanostructure, to obtain a surface with dynamically tunable micro/nanostructure, especially that can memorize and keep different micro/nanostructures and related wettabilities, is still a challenge. Herein, by creating micro/nanostructured arrays on shape memory polymer, a superhydrophobic surface that has shape memory ability in changing and recovering its hierarchical structures and related wettabilities was reported. Meanwhile, the surface was successfully used in the rewritable functional chip for droplet storage by designing microstructure-dependent patterns, which breaks through current research that structure patterns cannot be reprogrammed. This article advances a superhydrophobic surface with shape memory hierarchical structure and the application in rewritable functional chip, which could start some fresh ideas for the development of smart superhydrophobic surface.

Fabrication of hierarchical gecko-inspired microarrays using a three-dimensional porous nickel oxide template

In the current work, a three dimensional porous nickel based (p-Ni/NiO) template processed by a simple electrodeposition method was used to fabricate the hierarchical gecko-inspired microarrays. The microstructure of p-Ni/NiO templates is controlled and optimized by deposition and post-treatment parameters. Bio-inspired polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microarrays with different morphologies were fabricated by casting and showed excellent adhesion strength and superhydrophobicity. This feasible method is a simple fabrication approach for the gecko dry adhesive using a reusable template.