| Plant leaves have a natural superpower — they’re designed with water repelling characteristics. Called a superhydrophobic surface, this trait allows leaves to cleanse themselves from dust particles. Inspired by such natural designs, a team of researchers at Texas A&M University has developed an innovative way to control the hydrophobicity of a surface to benefit to the biomedical field. | |
| Researchers in Dr. Akhilesh K. Gaharwar’s lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a “lotus effect” by incorporating atomic defects in nanomaterials, which could have widespread applications in biomedical field including biosensing, lab-on-a-chip, blood-repellent, anti-fouling and self-cleaning applications. |
| Superhydrophobic materials are used extensively for self-cleaning characteristic of devices. However, current materials require alteration to the chemistry or topography of the surface to work. This limits the use of superhydrophobic materials. | |
| “Designing hydrophobic surfaces and controlling the wetting behavior has long been of great interest, as it plays crucial role in accomplishing self-cleaning ability.” Gaharwar said. “However, there are limited biocompatible approach to control the wetting behavior of the surface as desired in several biomedical and biotechnological applications.” | |
| The Texas A&M design adopts a ‘nanoflower-like’ assembly of two-dimensional (2D) atomic layers to protect the surface from wetting. The team recently released a study published in Chemical Communications (“Superhydrophobic states of 2D nanomaterials controlled by atomic defects can modulate cell adhesion”). |
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