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Strelitzia reginae leaf as a natural template for anisotropic wetting and superhydrophobicity
journal contribution
posted on 2015-06-11, 13:11 authored by Elisa MeleElisa Mele, Salvatore Girardo, Dario PisignanoArtificial surfaces that exhibit unidirectional water spreading and superhydrophobicity are obtained by Strelitzia reginae leaves. Both green and dried leaves are used, thus exploiting the plant senescence. We demonstrate that the natural drying process of the leaves strongly affects the surface morphology and wettability. Polymeric stamps from the green leaf show an arrangement of periodic microridges/microgrooves that favor anisotropic wetting, with a water contact angle (WCA) variation of about 21% along the two principal directions. Instead, the shrinkage of the leaf tissue, as a consequence of the natural dehydration process, induces an enhancement of the superficial corrugation. This results in the establishment of a superhydrophobic state, which shows a WCA of up to 160°, and water rolling off. S. reginae leaves are therefore easily accessible stamps suitable for controlling wettability and realizing surfaces that exhibit various wetting behaviors.
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
- Materials
Published in
LANGMUIRVolume
28Issue
11Pages
5312 - 5317 (6)Citation
MELE, E., GIRARDO, S. and PISIGNANO, D., 2012. Strelitzia reginae leaf as a natural template for anisotropic wetting and superhydrophobicity. Langmuir, 28 (11), pp. 5312 - 5317.Publisher
© American Chemical SocietyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2012Notes
This paper is closed access.ISSN
0743-7463Publisher version
Language
- en