| Liquid aerosols occur widely in our environment, including clouds, haze, and air pollution, such as smog and smoke. Liquid aerosols that are composed of harmful chemicals or biochemical ingredients are extremely harmful to human health. When biochemical components participate, it is very hard to block them with normal superhydrophobic textile droplet barriers because of their small volume. Spider webs, which can collect moisture from high relative humidity environments and form larger water droplets, have been found that have spindle knot structures. After their discovery, spindle knots have been assumed as the key reason to move the tiny droplets directionally and spontaneously. However, these studies did not provide solid understanding about why it happens. The primary targets of this study are to understand the fundamental science behind the wetting behavior of liquid aerosols and to design and produce a textile barrier, which is "super-aerosol-phobic". In this study, the fundamentals of directional motion of water droplets on spindle knots have been investigated using both theoretical and experimental approaches based on Gibbs free energy, capillarity and Laplace pressure. Meanwhile, the structure of aerosol liquid barrier has been optimized and initial materials created. |
