Regioselective deposition of hydrophilic sites to enhance the fog collection performance of hydrophilic-hydrophobic surface

Due to the increasingly serious shortage of water resources, fog collection has attracted extensive attention of researchers. Through a simple electrodeposition method and subsequent immersion modification, a top-added hydrophilic sites method was proposed to fabricate hydrophobic-hydrophilic surface on a tape-covered stainless steel substrate. The intrinsic hydrophobicity of CeO2 coating helps build surface energy gradients to strengthen the drop shedding process and the hydrophility of regioselectively-deposited dopamine sites helps strengthen the droplet capture process. Therefore, the fog collection rate of the superhydrophobic-hydrophilic surface was 5 times higher than that of pristine substrate. This method provides a new idea for enhancing the fog collection performance of hydrophilic-hydrophobic surfaces.