Nature-Inspired Surface Engineering for Efficient Atmospheric Water Harvesting

Zihao Li; Luheng Tang; Hanbin Wang; Subhash C Singh; Xiaoming Wei; Zhongmin Yang; Chunlei Guo

doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c00760

Nature-Inspired Surface Engineering for Efficient Atmospheric Water Harvesting

ACS Sustain Chem Eng. 2023 Jul 18;11(30):11019-11031. doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c00760. eCollection 2023 Jul 31.

Authors

Zihao Li^{1

2}, Luheng Tang¹, Hanbin Wang¹, Subhash C Singh¹, Xiaoming Wei², Zhongmin Yang², Chunlei Guo¹

Affiliations

¹ The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, United States.
² School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.

Abstract

Atmospheric water harvesting is a sustainable solution to global water shortage, which requires high efficiency, high durability, low cost, and environmentally friendly water collectors. In this paper, we report a novel water collector design based on a nature-inspired hybrid superhydrophilic/superhydrophobic aluminum surface. The surface is fabricated by combining laser and chemical treatments. We achieve a 163° contrast in contact angles between the superhydrophilic pattern and the superhydrophobic background. Such a unique superhydrophilic/superhydrophobic combination presents a self-pumped mechanism, providing the hybrid collector with highly efficient water harvesting performance. Based on simulations and experimental measurements, the water harvesting rate of the repeating units of the pattern was optimized, and the corresponding hybrid collector achieves a water harvesting rate of 0.85 kg m^-2 h^-1. Additionally, our hybrid collector also exhibits good stability, flexibility, as well as thermal conductivity and hence shows great potential for practical application.