How liquids charge the superhydrophobic surfaces

Yuankai Jin, Siyan Yang, Mingzi Sun, Shouwei Gao, Yaqi Cheng, Chenyang Wu, Zhenyu Xu, Yunting Guo, Wanghuai Xu, Xuefeng Gao, Steven Wang, Bolong Huang () and Zuankai Wang ()
Additional contact information
Yuankai Jin: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Siyan Yang: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Mingzi Sun: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Shouwei Gao: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yaqi Cheng: City University of Hong Kong
Chenyang Wu: City University of Hong Kong
Zhenyu Xu: City University of Hong Kong
Yunting Guo: City University of Hong Kong
Wanghuai Xu: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Xuefeng Gao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Steven Wang: City University of Hong Kong
Bolong Huang: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Zuankai Wang: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Liquid-solid contact electrification (CE) is essential to diverse applications. Exploiting its full implementation requires an in-depth understanding and fine-grained control of charge carriers (electrons and/or ions) during CE. Here, we decouple the electrons and ions during liquid-solid CE by designing binary superhydrophobic surfaces that eliminate liquid and ion residues on the surfaces and simultaneously enable us to regulate surface properties, namely work function, to control electron transfers. We find the existence of a linear relationship between the work function of superhydrophobic surfaces and the as-generated charges in liquids, implying that liquid-solid CE arises from electron transfer due to the work function difference between two contacting surfaces. We also rule out the possibility of ion transfer during CE occurring on superhydrophobic surfaces by proving the absence of ions on superhydrophobic surfaces after contact with ion-enriched acidic, alkaline, and salt liquids. Our findings stand in contrast to existing liquid-solid CE studies, and the new insights learned offer the potential to explore more applications.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49088-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-49088-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49088-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().