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The dynamic wetting behavior of droplets has been of wide concern due to the hazards of accretion/icing of supercooled droplets on engineering components/systems served in low temperature freezing rain environment; thus, it is urgent to establish the relationship between droplet depinning/removing behaviors and surface characteristics. In this article, the actual rotation conditions of moving components such as wind turbine blades are simulated. The self-cleaning hydrophobic coating surface(S1) and bionic superhydrophobic coating surface(S2) show outstanding droplet removal performance compared to hydrophilic bare steel surface(S0), and the average speed of the droplet removal is increased by 400-500%. The "creeping-sliding" behavior of droplets on self-cleaning coatings is investigated by the change of droplet displacement( ΔD ). The effect of the energy storage caused by the droplet creeping process provides initial kinetic energy for the droplet removal. Combined with the experimental data and theoretical model, the critical depinning resistance is calculated. The difference of the wetting interface free energy( ΔE x ) during the dynamic wetting process of the droplets on the bionic superhydrophobic self-cleaning surface is researched. And the influence mechanism of the droplet embedded depth( x ) on the creeping/sliding behavior in the nanotexture is clarified. Thus, the mechanical criterion of droplet depinning is proposed (the error is about 10%). The results can provide a theoretical basis for the design principle of antifreezing rain coatings on moving components.

A green and efficient visible-light induced functionalization of anilines under mild conditions has been reported. Utilizing nontoxic, cost-effective, and water-soluble diacetyl as photosensitizer and acetylating reagent, and water as the solvent, a variety of anilines were converted into the corresponding aryl ketones, iodides, and bromides. With advantages of environmentally friendly conditions, simple operation, broad substrate scope, and functional group tolerance, this reaction represents a valuable method in organic synthesis.

Anti-icing materials have become increasingly urgent for many fields such as power transmission, aviation, energy, telecommunications, and so on. Bionic lotus hydrophobic surfaces with hierarchical micro-/nanostructures show good potential of delaying ice formation; however, their icephobicity (deicing ability) has been controversial. It is mainly attributed to lack of deep understanding of the correlation between micro-/nanoscale structures, wettability, and icephobicity, as well as effective methods for evaluating the deicing ability close to natural environments. In this article, the natural deicing ability is innovatively proposed on the basis of ice adhesion and the influence of microscale structure evolution on dynamic wetting and deicing ability (both ice adhesion strength and natural deicing time) was systematically investigated. Interestingly, different modes (sticky or slippery) were found in natural deicing of hierarchical hydrophobic surfaces, although their ice adhesion strength was higher than that of smooth surfaces. The mechanism was analyzed from three aspects: mechanics, heat transfer, and dynamic wetting. It is highlighted that the sliding of melted interface is not equal to water droplet sliding (dynamic wetting) before freezing or after deicing but significantly depends on the microscale structure. The fundamental understanding on natural deicing of bionic hydrophobic surfaces will open up a new window for developing new anti-icing materials and technology.

Nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) offer remarkable opportunities to direct colloids to form complex structures. The elastic energy field that dictates colloid interactions is determined by the NLC director field, which is sensitive to and can be controlled by boundaries including vessel walls and colloid surfaces. By molding the director field via liquid-crystal alignment on these surfaces, elastic energy landscapes can be defined to drive structure formation. We focus on colloids in otherwise defect-free director fields formed near undulating walls. Colloids can be driven along prescribed paths and directed to well-defined docking sites on such wavy boundaries. Colloids that impose strong alignment generate topologically required companion defects. Configurations for homeotropic colloids include a dipolar structure formed by the colloid and its companion hedgehog defect or a quadrupolar structure formed by the colloid and its companion Saturn ring. Adjacent to wavy walls with wavelengths larger than the colloid diameter, spherical particles are attracted to locations along the wall with distortions in the nematic director field that complement those from the colloid. This is the basis of lock-and-key interactions. Here, we study ellipsoidal colloids with homeotropic anchoring near complex undulating walls. The walls impose distortions that decay with distance from the wall to a uniform director in the far field. Ellipsoids form dipolar defect configurations with the colloid's major axis aligned with the far field director. Two distinct quadrupolar defect structures also form, stabilized by confinement; these include the Saturn I configuration with the ellipsoid's major axis aligned with the far field director and the Saturn II configuration with the major axis perpendicular to the far field director. The ellipsoid orientation varies only weakly in bulk and near undulating walls. All configurations are attracted to walls with long, shallow waves. However, for walls with wavelengths that are small compared to the colloid length, Saturn II is repelled, allowing selective docking of aligned objects. Deep, narrow wells prompt the insertion of a vertical ellipsoid. By introducing an opening at the bottom of such a deep well, we study colloids within pores that connect two domains. Ellipsoids with different aspect ratios find different equilibrium positions. An ellipsoid of the right dimension and aspect ratio can plug the pore, creating a class of 2D selective membranes.

Anti-icing surfaces/interfaces are of considerable importance in various engineering fields under natural freezing environment. Although superhydrophobic self-cleaning surfaces show good anti-icing potentials, promotion of these surfaces in engineering applications seems to enter a "bottleneck" stage. One of the key issues is the intrinsic relationship between superhydrophobicity and icephobicity is unclear, and the dynamic action mechanism of "air cushion" (a key internal factor for superhydrophobicity) on icing suppression was largely ignored. Here we report that icing inhibition (i.e., icing-delay) of self-cleaning surfaces is mainly ascribed to air cushion and its convection. We experimentally found air cushion on the porous self-cleaning coating under vacuum environments and on the water/ice-coating interface at low temperatures. The icing-delay performances of porous self-cleaning surfaces compared with bare substrate, up to 10-40 min under 0 to ∼-4 °C environments close to freezing rain, have been accurately real-time recorded by a novel synergy method including high-speed photography and strain sensing voltage. Based on the experimental results, we innovatively propose a physical model of "air cushion convection inhibiting icing", which envisages both the static action of trapped air pocket without air flow and dynamic action of air cushion convection. Gibbs free energy of water droplets increased with the entropy of air derived from heat and mass transfer between warmer air underneath water droplets and colder surrounding air, resulting in remarkable ice nucleation delay. Only when air cushion convection disappears can ice nucleation be triggered on suitable Gibbs free energy conditions. The fundamental understanding of air cushion on anti-icing is an important step toward designing optimal anti-icing surfaces for practical engineering application.

Coaxial cables for data transmission are ubiquitous in telecommunications, aerospace, automotive, and robotics industries. Yet, the metals used to make commercial cables are unsuitably heavy and stiff. These undesirable traits are particularly problematic in aerospace applications, where weight is at a premium and flexibility is necessary to conform with the distributed layout of electronic components in satellites and aircraft. The cable outer conductor (OC) is usually the heaviest component of modern data cables; therefore, exchanging the conventional metallic OC for lower weight materials with comparable transmission characteristics is highly desirable. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have recently been proposed to replace the metal components in coaxial cables; however, signal attenuation was too high in prototypes produced so far. Here, we fabricate the OC of coaxial data cables by directly coating a solution of CNTs in chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) onto the cable inner dielectric. This coating has an electrical conductivity that is approximately 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best CNT OC reported in the literature to date. This high conductivity makes CNT coaxial cables an attractive alternative to commercial cables with a metal (tin-coated copper) OC, providing comparable cable attenuation and mechanical durability with a 97% lower component mass.

Focal conic domains (FCDs) form in smectic-A liquid crystal films with hybrid anchoring conditions with eccentricity and size distribution that depend strongly on interface curvature. Assemblies of FCDs can be exploited in settings ranging from optics to material assembly. Here, using micropost arrays with different shapes and arrangement, we assemble arrays of smectic flower patterns, revealing their internal structure as well as defect size, location, and distribution as a function of interface curvature, by imposing positive, negative, or zero Gaussian curvature at the free surface. We characterize these structures, relating free surface topography, substrate anchoring strength, and FCD distribution. Whereas the largest FCDs are located in the thickest regions of the films, the distribution of sizes is not trivially related to height, due to Apollonian tiling. Finally, we mold FCDs around microposts of complex shape and find that FCD arrangements are perturbed near the posts, but are qualitatively similar far from the posts where the details of the confining walls and associated curvature fields decay. This ability to mold FCD defects into a variety of hierarchical assemblies by manipulating the interface curvature paves the way to create new optical devices, such as compound eyes, via a directed assembly scheme.