Bioinspired anisotropic surfaces with hybrid wettability for enhanced fog harvesting
Xiangge Bai, Yishan Chen, Jiahui Chu, Lemin Zhang, Yahua Liu · 2026
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Description
Xiangge Bai and four co-authors build a surface that harvests water from fog, modeled on a beetle and a leaf, in this 2026 paper. Dry regions need decentralized water sources, and fog collection is one candidate. Past designs traded off droplet growth against droplet removal, and surfaces fouled or wore out.
Their surface takes bumps from a desert beetle's back, which seed droplets, and grooves from rice leaves, which steer them. Water-loving dots sit on a water-repelling, grooved base, so droplets grow fast, then slide off in one direction, refreshing the surface. The best rate reached 4.3 grams per square centimeter per hour, and performance held across twenty cycles. The surface also cleans itself. Simple coating methods make it, the authors say, so it could scale for dry communities.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xiangge Bai, Yishan Chen, Jiahui Chu, Lemin Zhang, Yahua Liu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 16 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |