Harnessing Reversible Wetting Transition to Sweep Contaminated Superhydrophobic Surfaces.

Sweeping deposited particles is absolutely essential in order to maintain the excellent functionality of superhydrophobic surfaces. Many methods have been proposed to sweep microparticles deposited on tips of micro/nanostructures. However, how to sweep nanoparticles trapped in cavities of superhydrophobic surfaces has remained an outstanding issue. Here, we show that harnessing the reversible wetting transition provides a feasible way to sweep such nanoparticles. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that the electrically induced CB-W wetting transition makes liquid intrude into a groove and wet a trapped hydrophilic nanoparticle; however, once the electric field is removed, a spontaneous W-CB dewetting transition happens, and the extruded liquid transports the hydrophilic nanoparticle to the groove top, successfully picking up the trapped hydrophilic nanoparticle. We further find that the adhesion between the nanoparticle and groove bottom wall hinders the successful pickup, and picking up such a nanoparticle requires a stronger particle hydrophilicity. With the introduction of amphiphilic Janus particles into a liquid, we exhibit that the electrically induced reversible wetting transition can also successfully pick up a trapped hydrophobic nanoparticle. By means of calculations of the potential of mean force (PMF), we reveal pathways of both the CB-W wetting transition and the W-CB dewetting transition and hence answer why and how a hydrophilic or a hydrophobic nanoparticle is picked up successfully.

Synthesis, Structural Characterization, and Antibacterial Activity of Novel Erbium(III) Complex Containing Antimony.

The novel 3D edta-linked heterometallic complex [Sb2Er(edta)2(H2O)4]NO3·4H2O (H4edta = ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) was synthesized and characterized by elemental analyses, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and thermal analysis. The complex crystallizes in the monoclinic system with space group Pm. In the complex, each erbium(III) ion is connected with antimony(III) ions bridging by four carboxylic oxygen atoms, and in each [Sb(edta)]- anion, the antimony(III) ion is hexacoordinated by two nitrogen atoms and four oxygen atoms from the edta4- ions, together with a lone electron pair at the equatorial position. The erbium(III) ion is octacoordinated by four oxygen atoms from four different edta4- ions and four oxygen atoms from the coordinated water molecules. The carboxylate bridges between antimony and erbium atoms form a planar array, parallel to the (1 0 0) plane. There is an obvious weak interaction between antimony atom and oxygen atom of the carboxyl group from the adjacent layer. The degradation of the complex proceeds in several steps and the water molecules and ligands are successively emitted, and the residues of the thermal decomposition are antimonous oxide and erbium(III) oxide. The complex was evaluated for its antimicrobial activities by agar diffusion method, and it has good activities against the test bacterial organisms.