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Bioinspired directional liquid transport induced by the corner effect

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Abstract

Many natural creatures have demonstrated unique abilities in directional liquid transport (DLT) for better adapting to the local environment, which, for a long time, have inspired the material fabrication for applications in microfluidics, self-cleaning, water collection, etc. Recently, DLTs aroused by the corner effect have been witnessed in various natural organisms, where liquid transports/spreads spontaneously along the corner structures in microgrooves, wedges or conical structures driven by micro-/nano- scaled capillary forces without external energy input. Particularly, these DLTs show advantages of ultrahigh speed, continuous proceeding, and/or external controllability. Here, we reviewed recent research advances on the bioinspired DLTs induced by the corner effect, as well as the involved mechanisms and the artificial counterpart materials with various applications. We also introduced some bioinspired materials that are capable of stimulus-responsive DLT under external fields. Finally, we suggested perspectives of the bioinspired DLTs in liquid manipulations.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFA0704801), the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholar (No. 22125201), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21872002 and 22105013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Zhongyu Shi, Zhongxue Tang, Bojie Xu, Lei Jiang & Huan Liu

  2. Research Institute for Frontier Science, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Lei Jiang & Huan Liu

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  1. Zhongyu Shi
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  2. Zhongxue Tang
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  3. Bojie Xu
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  4. Lei Jiang
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  5. Huan Liu
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Correspondence to Huan Liu.

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Shi, Z., Tang, Z., Xu, B. et al. Bioinspired directional liquid transport induced by the corner effect. Nano Res. 16, 3913–3923 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4866-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4866-5

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