(Soft Matter) Bioinspired spindle-knotted fibers with a strong water-collecting ability from humid environment.
writer：Y. Chen, L. Wang, Y. Xue, Y. Zheng* & L. Jiang
keywords：bioinspired
source：期刊
specific source：Soft Matter 2012, 8, 11450 – 11454
Issue time：2012年
We fabricate a bioinspired spindle-knotted fiber (BSF) via an
improved method of Rayleigh instability break-up droplets. The
BSF is composed of multi-level spindle-knots that can generate
continuous gradients of surface energy and different Laplace pressures.
We investigate the water collecting ability of BSF under
humid environments and observe how the spindle-knots collect water
from the environmental humidity by means of cooperative driving
forces resulting from individual spindle-knots. We reveal that the
multi-level spindle-knots of BSF may play a role in water collection
compared with uniform fibers without any spindle-knots. We
demonstrate that the size effect of a spindle-knot is related to the
capillary adhesion of hanging-drops, thus BSF has a much higher
water collection efficiency in humid environments than normal
uniform fibers. The mechanism is elucidated further to open a model
of high efficiency materials for water collection.