title: Bio-inspired multistructured conical copper wires for highly efficient liquid manipulation.
abstract: Animal hairs are typical structured conical fibers ubiquitous in natural system that enable the manipulation of low viscosity liquid in a well-controlled manner, which serves as the fundamental structure in Chinese brush for ink delivery in a controllable manner. Here, drawing inspiration from these structure, we developed a dynamic electrochemical method that enables fabricating the anisotropic multiscale structured conical copper wire (SCCW) with controllable conicity and surface morphology. The as-prepared SCCW exhibits a unique ability for manipulating liquid with significantly high efficiency, and over 428 times greater than its own volume of liquid could be therefore operated. We propose that the boundary condition of the dynamic liquid balance behavior on conical fibers, namely, steady holding of liquid droplet at the tip region of the SCCW, makes it an excellent fibrous medium to manipulate liquid. Moreover, we demonstrate that the titling angle of the SCCW can also affect its efficiency of liquid manipulation by virtue of its mechanical rigidity, which is hardly realized by flexible natural hairs. We envision that the bio-inspired SCCW could give inspiration in designing materials and devices to manipulate liquid in a more controllable way and with high efficiency.
authors: Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Environment, Beihang University , Beijing 100191, P. R. China.
authors: Qianbin
authors: Q
authors: Wang
authors: Qingan
authors: Q
authors: Meng
authors: Ming
authors: M
authors: Chen
authors: Huan
authors: H
authors: Liu
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Jiang
mesh_terms: D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D003300:Copper / Q000737:chemistry*; D004560:Electricity; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D003300:Copper
keywords: bio-inspired; conical shape; highly efficient; liquid manipulation; multistructured scale