Lucian Lucia and Zahra Ashrafi
The development of an innovative interfacial wetting strategy known as liquid infused systems offers great promise for design of super-wetting and super-ant wetting substrates that overcome the drawbacks of textured surfaces classified as Cassie/Wenzel states. The value of such nature-inspired surfaces can address practical scientific and technological challenges within interfacial chemistry such as ease of manufacture, separation efficiency, recharge ability, anti-fouling, and robustness. For example, we demonstrate that nanocellulose fibers from bacteria can form a high-performance three-dimensional cross linked network confining a dispersed liquid medium such as water that leads to interfacial engineering marvels. More specifically, the strong chemical and physical interactions between dispersed water molecules and entangled cellulosic network endow these substrates with effective liquid separation capabilities.
