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by mleonhard
395 days ago
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Looking at the paper, it seems like they put some silicon-dioxide nanoparticles on a substrate, then add a plastic (poly-ethylene) layer on top and melt it (annealing). The spaces between the nanoparticles gets partially filled with plastic. The ratio of plastic to particles is the poly-ethylene volume fraction (ϕPE). They tested different fractions and found that a certain range caused the wetting behavior. Their experiments suggest that tiny water droplets appear inside the material at 70% RH (relative humidity). If this is true, then I expect there is a way to extract the droplets using very little energy. Ideas: - make open collection points on the film - use ultrasound to bounce the droplets around and consolidate them - make the film on a material that can be saturated with water so the new droplets can easily join the flow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_fraction |
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