Exploiting the solid-liquid interface

液体与固体的相互作用是许多科学和工程领域的基础。在雨天，我们需要外套来保持干燥，挡风玻璃雨刷来观察，水库来收集水，让我们活着。我们的汽车需要油来润滑发动机，我们的船需要船体来减少阻力，我们的飞机需要机翼来限制冰的形成。许多生物系统在没有液体环境的情况下会萎缩和干燥。我们环境中的土壤在下雨时受到侵蚀，在发生石油泄漏时受到污染。大自然已经学会了用无数种方式控制水。荷叶在下雨的时候可以清除灰尘，沙漠里的甲虫可以从清晨的雾中收集饮用水，一些蜘蛛可以在水上行走。我们对如何模仿自然界进化出的对水的适应知之甚少，但如果我们做到了，我们就可以设计出智能表面来随意保留或流出液体。我们可以创造出更好的衣服、挡风玻璃、管道和微型生化工厂以及信用卡大小的诊断系统。这就是本平台赠款的目的。不是专注于单一的工业部门或应用，而是利用自然界中的一种基本相互作用。为此，我们将采取由研究委员会和工业界资助的基础研究，并通过发展与水上运动、精子活力、微阵列技术和电光设备等广泛领域相关的蓝天研究来增加价值。这将通过巩固关键的跨学科技能，为研究人员提供参与开创性项目的灵活性，同时保持合同的连续性，以及通过整合和培训新的研究人员来实现。

The interaction of liquids with solids is fundamental to many areas of science and engineering. On a wet day we need coats to keep dry, windscreen wipers to see and reservoirs to collect water and keep us alive. Our cars need oil to lubricate their engines, our ships need hulls that reduce drag and our planes need wings that limit ice formation. Many biological systems shrivel and dry without a liquid environment. The soil in our environment erodes as it rains and becomes contaminated when oil spillages occur. Nature has learnt to control water in a myriad of ways. The Lotus leaf cleanses itself of dust when it rains, a beetle in the desert collects drinking water from an early morning fog and some spiders walk on water. We understand so little of how to mimic the adaptations to water that nature has evolved, but if we did, we could design intelligent surfaces to retain or shed liquids at will. We could create better clothes, windscreens, pipes and miniature bio-chemical factories and diagnostic systems on the size of a credit card. That is the intention of this Platform grant. Not to focus on a single industrial sector or application, but rather to exploit one of the basic interactions in nature. To do so we will take basic research funded by research councils and industry, and add value by developing blue-skies research of relevance to a wide range of areas, such as water sports, sperm motility, microarray technology and electro-optical devices. This will be achieved by underpinning key interdisciplinary skills, providing flexibility for research staff to engage in ground-breaking projects, whilst maintaining contract continuity, and by integrating and training new researchers to the group.