In Situ Reversible Control between Sliding and Pinning for Diverse Liquids under Ultra-Low Voltage

Abstract

Thermally-responsive paraffin-infused slippery surfaces have demonstrated intriguing performance in manipulating the behaviors of versatile droplets. However, present methods have been limited to an ex-situ rigid heat-sources with a high voltage of 220 V or certain specific photo-thermal materials, which greatly hinders its practical applications. To solve this problem, an intelligent droplet motion control actuator (DMCA) composed of paraffin wax, hydrophobic micropillar-arrayed ZnO film and a flexible transparent silver nanowire heater (SNWH) is reported in this work. Due to the good portability of DMCA, in-situ switchable wettability for several liquid droplets with different surface tensions can be achieved by simply loading/unloading Joule-heat at an ultralow voltage (12 V). The relationship among sliding velocity and droplet volume and inclined angles was quantitatively investigated. By virtue of the flexible and mechanical endurance, this smart DMCA is dramatically functional for droplet motion manipulation (e.g., reversible control between sliding and pinning) on complex 3D surfaces. Significantly, an impressive self-healing ability within 22 s is also demonstrated through in-situ applying Joule-heat on the scratched DMCA, which renders its practical usability in various harsh conditions. This work provides insights for designing intelligent, flexible and portable actuators dealing with the challenges of smart temperature-responsive surfaces.