EAGER: Biomimetic Moisture-Resistant Micro-Condensation Surfaces for Civil and Architectural Engineering

“该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。“这项研究的目的是开发一种可再生的超疏水纳米复合材料涂层，利用创新的微冷凝原理，模仿自然，实现防潮表面。 具有用于高效微观冷凝的交替超疏水/超亲水微结构的仿生微图案化表面的存在将允许显著更有效地去除水分，与常规超疏水表面相比，这将选择性地收集水分作为冷凝的微滴并通过重力有效地去除它们。所提出的涂层可以容易地施加到宽范围的表面，并且可以通过标准光刻制造技术获得。这项工作可能会影响各种各样的土木和建筑工程应用，例如，作为建筑物，雕像和地标的保护涂层，防止悬挂和斜拉桥中的电缆中的雨/风引起的振荡的方法，水收集方法，以及用于防霉的湿度控制方法。两个博士在这项研究中，将有两名学生参与：一名来自生物医学工程专业，将开发和表征一种图案化涂层，该涂层专门设计用于与不同类型的基材结合;另一名来自土木与环境工程专业，将对湿热测试样本进行重量分析，然后进行静态测试。

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."The objective of this study is to develop a photopatternable superhydrophobic nanocomposite coating to achieve a moisture-resistant surface using an innovative micro-condensation principle, mimicking nature. The presence of the biomimetic micropatterned surface with alternating superhydrophobic/superhydrophilic microstructures for high-efficient microscopic condensation would allow a significantly more efficient removal of moisture, which would selectively collect the moisture as condensed micro-droplets and effectively remove them by gravitation, in comparison with the conventional superhydrophobic surfaces. The proposed coating may be easily applied to a wide range of surfaces, and can be obtained through a standard photolithography manufacturing technique. This work can potentially impact a wide variety of civil and architectural engineering applications, for example, as protective coating of buildings, statues and landmarks, a method to prevent rain/wind induced oscillations in cables in suspension and cable-stayed bridges, a water harvesting method, and a moisture control method for mold prevention. Two Ph.D. students will be involved in this research: one student from Biomedical Engineering, who will develop and characterize a patterned coating especially designed to bond with different types of substrates; the other from Civil and Environmental Engineering, who will run gravimetric analysis of the hygrothermally tested specimens, followed by static testing.