干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Nature does nothing in vain. On a world-wide scale, many organisms evolved sophisticated micro/nano fibril structures or patterns to obtain optimized multi-functionality. They have the ability of the extraordinary adhesion and antifouling, such as lotus leaves, gecko’s feet, spider silk and pitch plant etc., which enable living animals to walk or jump on dry or wet, smooth or rough, vertical or even inverted surfaces. Although sticky, those surfaces can dislodge most of the dust during their movements, which presents a new and contradict phenomenon: sticky and self-cleaning properties. It can be further divided into two categories: dry self-cleaning (e.g., gecko) and wet self-cleaning (e.g., lotus leaves, pitch plant etc.). One important mechanism possessing wet self-cleaning is called the surface wettability, which can be further elucidated into four different sections: super-hydrophobicity, super-oleophilicity, super-hydrophilicity and super-oleophobicity. Furthermore, there are lots of practical applications derived from those properties, such as anticorrosion, anti-icing, water collection in desert and more. It is essential for us to have a better understanding of the fundamental rules on the finding and development of self-cleaning property on account of super-wettability to explicate animal behaviors and rationally design next generation bio-mimics devices. In this cut-edge review, we summarized the recent progress on preparation, synthesis and applications of the discovery and development of this interesting surface and their bio-mimics, as well as application prospect for subsea production system, which can enlighten scientists on the next generation design and constructions of bio-inspired self-cleaning surfaces and their applications perspectives.