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Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures

Superhydrophobic surfaces are well known for most different functions in plants, animals, and thus for biomimetic technical applications. Beside the Lotus Effect, one of their features with great technical, economic and ecologic potential is the Salvinia Effect, the capability to keep a stable air l...

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Autores principales: Mail, Matthias, Walheim, Stefan, Schimmel, Thomas, Barthlott, Wilhelm, Gorb, Stanislav N, Heepe, Lars
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Beilstein-Institut 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9704008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36483637
http://dx.doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.13.113
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author Mail, Matthias
Walheim, Stefan
Schimmel, Thomas
Barthlott, Wilhelm
Gorb, Stanislav N
Heepe, Lars
author_facet Mail, Matthias
Walheim, Stefan
Schimmel, Thomas
Barthlott, Wilhelm
Gorb, Stanislav N
Heepe, Lars
author_sort Mail, Matthias
collection PubMed
description Superhydrophobic surfaces are well known for most different functions in plants, animals, and thus for biomimetic technical applications. Beside the Lotus Effect, one of their features with great technical, economic and ecologic potential is the Salvinia Effect, the capability to keep a stable air layer when submerged under water. Such air layers are of great importance, e.g., for drag reduction (passive air lubrication), antifouling, sensor applications or oil–water separation. Some biological models, e.g., the floating fern Salvinia or the backswimmer Notonecta, show long term stable air retention even under hydrodynamic conditions. Therefore, they are ideal models for the development of technical biomimetic air retaining surfaces. Up to now, several prototypes of such surfaces have been developed, but none provides both, stable air retention and cost effective large scale production. Meanwhile, a novel biomimetic surface is commercially available and produced on a large scale: an adhesive elastomeric film with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures that mimic the adhesion system of animals. In this study, we show that these films, which have been initially developed for a different purpose, due to their specific geometry at the microscale, are capable of stable air retention under water. We present first results concerning the capabilities of mushroom-shaped surface microstructures and show that this elastomer foil is able to stabilize a permanent air layer under water for more than two weeks. Further, the stability of the air layer under pressure was investigated and these results are compared with the predicted theoretical values for air retention of microstructured surfaces. Here, we could show that they fit to the theoretical predictions and that the biomimetic elastomer foil is a promising base for the development of an economically and efficient biomimetic air retaining surface for a broad range of technical applications.
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spelling pubmed-97040082022-12-07 Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures Mail, Matthias Walheim, Stefan Schimmel, Thomas Barthlott, Wilhelm Gorb, Stanislav N Heepe, Lars Beilstein J Nanotechnol Full Research Paper Superhydrophobic surfaces are well known for most different functions in plants, animals, and thus for biomimetic technical applications. Beside the Lotus Effect, one of their features with great technical, economic and ecologic potential is the Salvinia Effect, the capability to keep a stable air layer when submerged under water. Such air layers are of great importance, e.g., for drag reduction (passive air lubrication), antifouling, sensor applications or oil–water separation. Some biological models, e.g., the floating fern Salvinia or the backswimmer Notonecta, show long term stable air retention even under hydrodynamic conditions. Therefore, they are ideal models for the development of technical biomimetic air retaining surfaces. Up to now, several prototypes of such surfaces have been developed, but none provides both, stable air retention and cost effective large scale production. Meanwhile, a novel biomimetic surface is commercially available and produced on a large scale: an adhesive elastomeric film with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures that mimic the adhesion system of animals. In this study, we show that these films, which have been initially developed for a different purpose, due to their specific geometry at the microscale, are capable of stable air retention under water. We present first results concerning the capabilities of mushroom-shaped surface microstructures and show that this elastomer foil is able to stabilize a permanent air layer under water for more than two weeks. Further, the stability of the air layer under pressure was investigated and these results are compared with the predicted theoretical values for air retention of microstructured surfaces. Here, we could show that they fit to the theoretical predictions and that the biomimetic elastomer foil is a promising base for the development of an economically and efficient biomimetic air retaining surface for a broad range of technical applications. Beilstein-Institut 2022-11-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9704008/ /pubmed/36483637 http://dx.doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.13.113 Text en Copyright © 2022, Mail et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Beilstein-Institut Open Access License Agreement (https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/terms/terms), which is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ). The reuse of material under this license requires that the author(s), source and license are credited. Third-party material in this article could be subject to other licenses (typically indicated in the credit line), and in this case, users are required to obtain permission from the license holder to reuse the material.
spellingShingle Full Research Paper
Mail, Matthias
Walheim, Stefan
Schimmel, Thomas
Barthlott, Wilhelm
Gorb, Stanislav N
Heepe, Lars
Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title_full Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title_fullStr Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title_full_unstemmed Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title_short Dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
title_sort dry under water: air retaining properties of large-scale elastomer foils covered with mushroom-shaped surface microstructures
topic Full Research Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9704008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36483637
http://dx.doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.13.113
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