Guest_Jim_* Posted August 21, 2015 Posted August 21, 2015 Researchers at Duke University have happened upon a discovery that could improve water purification systems and more. Initially the researchers were investigating how insect wings with hairy structures clean themselves and noticed a curious phenomenon of two droplets merging jumping off of the hair. As they investigated further they discovered it was more than just some artifact from a breeze. Droplets store energy along their surface, and when two droplets merge the total surface area decreases, so some energy has to be released. That release can be enough to launch the droplet from the surface it is on. Previous work has shown this with flat surfaces, but those had to be superhydrophobic. The fibers in this study though did not have to be superhydrophobic, but just reasonably hydrophobic, which the researchers achieved by coating them in a Teflon. Superhydrophobic materials tend to be very fragile, so achieving this with a stronger hydrophobic is quite important. Potentially this could be used in water purifiers that use fibrous webs to collect droplets because you want the droplets off of the web as soon as possible. Source: Duke University Back to original news post Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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