TOMSK, Oct 9 – RIA
Tomsk. Scientists
of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) have learned how to quickly manage the
wettability of the material and forced it to self-clean, having offered a new
concept for liquids managing on the surface of materials, the press service of
the university reported on Tuesday.
"TPU scientists
together with colleagues from the Czech Republic (University of Chemistry and
Technology, Prague) achieved that the same material very quickly (within seven
seconds) could become superhydrophobic (that is not become soak in general),
and then hydrophilic (well absorbed liquid), – is said in the report. It is
added that the results are published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
journal (impact factor 8.0).
© Маргарита Волоковых
Creation of
"smart" materials which can respond to external irritants and change
their properties, is one of the key tasks of modern chemical technology. “And
the most important direction here - is wettability management. Such methods
exist, but their main drawback – is speed”, – the press service quoted the associate
professor of the TPU Research School of Chemistry & Applied Biomedical
Sciences Pavel Postnikov.
According to him, if at the
previous methods the material responds to the impulse – say, light – within a
few minutes, then their research team managed to achieve an almost instant
response by combining physical and chemical methods.
Thus, processing the
material in a special way and exposing it to an electric current, scientists
were able to achieve a superhydrophobic state, when it is enough to tilt the plate
of material by three degrees, so that a drop rolled down of it. Moreover,
scientists observed such effects not only with water, but also with lyophilic
solvents, that is, the method is suitable for a wide range of liquids.
Another very important property
- is that the surface of the material is self-cleaning. Also, scientists for
the first time to manage to achieve the adhesion of drops, that is, their
ability to adhere to a solid surface. “These properties can be applied in
microfluidic devices for chemical, biomedical analyzes, environmental
monitoring, as well as for the creation of biosensors”, – Postnikov specified.