Asymmetric drop coalescence launches fungal ballistospores with directionality.

Thousands of fungal species use surface energy to power the launch of their ballistospores. The surface energy is released when a spherical Buller's drop at the spore's hilar appendix merges with a flattened drop on the adaxial side of the spore. The launching mechanism is primarily understood in terms of energetic models, and crucial features such as launching directionality are unexplained. Integrating experiments and simulations, we advance a mechanistic model based on the capillary-inertial coalescence between the Buller's drop and the adaxial drop, a pair that is asymmetric in size, shape and relative position. The asymmetric coalescence is surprisingly effective and robust, producing a launching momentum governed by the Buller's drop and a launching direction along the adaxial plane of the spore. These key functions of momentum generation and directional control are elucidated by numerical simulations, demonstrated on spore-mimicking particles, and corroborated by published ballistospore kinematics. Our work places the morphological and kinematic diversity of ballistospores into a general mechanical framework, and points to a generic catapulting mechanism of colloidal particles with implications for both biology and engineering.

Capillary-inertial colloidal catapults upon drop coalescence.

Surface energy released upon drop coalescence is known to power the self-propelled jumping of liquid droplets on superhydrophobic solid surfaces, and the jumping droplets can additionally carry colloidal payloads toward self-cleaning. Here, we show that drop coalescence on a spherical particle leads to self-propelled launching of the particle from virtually any solid surface. The main prerequisite is an intermediate wettability of the particle, such that the momentum from the capillary-inertial drop coalescence process can be transferred to the particle. By momentum conservation, the launching velocity of the particle-drop complex is proportional to the capillary-inertial velocity based on the drop radius and to the fraction of the liquid mass in the total mass. The capillary-inertial catapult is not only an alternative mechanism for removing colloidal contaminants, but also a useful model system for studying ballistospore launching.

Self-Propelled Droplet Removal from Hydrophobic Fiber-Based Coalescers.

Fiber-based coalescers are widely used to accumulate droplets from aerosols and emulsions, where the accumulated droplets are typically removed by gravity or shear. This Letter reports self-propelled removal of drops from a hydrophobic fiber, where the surface energy released upon drop coalescence overcomes the drop-fiber adhesion, producing spontaneous departure that would not occur on a flat substrate of the same contact angle. The self-removal takes place above a threshold drop-to-fiber radius ratio, and the departure speed is close to the capillary-inertial velocity at large radius ratios.

Self-cleaning of superhydrophobic surfaces by self-propelled jumping condensate.

The self-cleaning function of superhydrophobic surfaces is conventionally attributed to the removal of contaminating particles by impacting or rolling water droplets, which implies the action of external forces such as gravity. Here, we demonstrate a unique self-cleaning mechanism whereby the contaminated superhydrophobic surface is exposed to condensing water vapor, and the contaminants are autonomously removed by the self-propelled jumping motion of the resulting liquid condensate, which partially covers or fully encloses the contaminating particles. The jumping motion off the superhydrophobic surface is powered by the surface energy released upon coalescence of the condensed water phase around the contaminants. The jumping-condensate mechanism is shown to spontaneously clean superhydrophobic cicada wings, where the contaminating particles cannot be removed by gravity, wing vibration, or wind flow. Our findings offer insights for the development of self-cleaning materials.

Wetting and dewetting transitions on hierarchical superhydrophobic surfaces.

Many natural superhydrophobic structures have hierarchical two-tier roughness which is empirically known to promote robust superhydrophobicity. We report the wetting and dewetting properties of two-tier roughness as a function of the wettability of the working fluid, where the surface tension of water/ethanol drops is tuned by the mixing ratio, and compare the results to one-tier roughness. When the ethanol concentration of deposited drops is gradually increased on one-tier control samples, the impalement of the microtier-only surface occurs at a lower ethanol concentration compared to the nanotier-only surface. The corresponding two-tier surface exhibits a two-stage wetting transition, first for the impalement of the microscale texture and then for the nanoscale one. The impaled drops are subsequently subjected to vibration-induced dewetting. Drops impaling one-tier surfaces could not be dewetted; neither could drops impaling both tiers of the two-tier roughness. However, on the two-tier surface, drops impaling only the microscale roughness exhibited a full dewetting transition upon vibration. Our work suggests that two-tier roughness is essential for preventing catastrophic, irreversible wetting of superhydrophobic surfaces.

Restoring superhydrophobicity of lotus leaves with vibration-induced dewetting.

A lotus leaf retains water repellency after repeated condensation in nature but becomes sticky to water drops after condensation on a fixed cold plate. Our experiments show that mechanical vibration can be used to overcome the energy barrier for transition from the sticky Wenzel state to the nonsticking Cassie state, and the threshold for the dewetting transition follows a scaling law comparing the kinetic energy imparted to the drop with the work of adhesion. The vibration-induced Wenzel to Cassie transition can be used to achieve antidew superhydrophobicity.

Self-propelled dropwise condensate on superhydrophobic surfaces.

In conventional dropwise condensation on a hydrophobic surface, the condensate drops must be removed by external forces for continuous operation. This Letter reports continuous dropwise condensation spontaneously occurring on a superhydrophobic surface without any external forces. The spontaneous drop removal results from the surface energy released upon drop coalescence, which leads to a surprising out-of-plane jumping motion of the coalesced drops at a speed as high as 1 m/s. The jumping follows an inertial-capillary scaling and gives rise to a micrometric average diameter at steady state.