Beetle-inspired paint
According to a paper recently published in Royal Society of Chemistry journal RSC Advances, a team led by Youfa Zhang of Southeast University, China, discovered they could create a simple paint that mimics the way a desert beetle’s skin both attracts water and then repels it towards its mouth.
By coating two facing surfaces with this paint, condensed water trapped in air can be ‘bounced’ together into droplets, resulting in them falling into a collection vessel below. And because the system is passive, it doesn’t need power to collect the water. The solution, which can be applied as a spray, could also result in new water proof clothing, fog-resistant car windows and extremely rapid water drainage.
Further information: RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 282–288, DOI: 10.1039/C9RA09329J