Beetle-Inspired Hierarchical Antibacterial Interface for Reliable Fog Harvesting

The microdroplets in fog flow have been considered as an important resource for supplying fresh drinking water. Most of the reported works of fog collection focus on the water-collecting ability rather than the environmental reliability of selected materials. In this work, a beetle-inspired hierarchical fog-collecting interface based on the antibacterial needle-array (ABN) and hydrophilic/hydrophobic cooperative structure is displayed. The hydrophilic ABN is coated with zwitterionic carboxybetaine (CB) brushes that endow the fog collector with a long-term cleaning in harsh environment. Due to its strong affinity to water molecules, the tilted needles with a CB coating can facilitate the capture of fog and the rapid delivery of condensed water driven by gravity. After being transported to the connected hydrophobic sheet, the collected droplets can be rapidly detached and stored in the container, achieving a high fog-harvesting rate. Furthermore, CB-patterned channels are integrated on the hydrophobic sheet for the pathway-controlled water delivery. The CB coating is able to efficiently resist bacterial adhesion and contamination during fog harvesting, protecting the device from microbiological corrosion. The current design provides a promising method to incorporate antibacterial ability into fog collectors, which offer great opportunity to develop water harvesters for real-world applications.