Bioinspired Superwettable Materials from Design, Fabrication to Application

Superwetting materials have been exhibiting excellent application in chemical reactions, pollutant removal, and materials fabrication, which rely on the combination of multiscale structures and surface chemical compositions. Studying natural biological organisms with superwettability and revealing the underlying mechanisms is the most effective way to design and fabricate superwettable materials and extend their potential applications. Over the past 20 years, biological organisms with superhydrophobic surfaces, superhydrophilic surfaces, directional liquid-transfer surfaces, and multifunctional surfaces combining superwettability with adhesion or optical properties have been discovered and given great inspirations to superwetting materials. This is only the beginning, and many more unique organisms are to be found, more superwetting materials are to be fabricated, and more applications are to be extended.

During the past two decades, bioinspired materials with superwettability have become a rapidly growing and enormously promising field. The main goal of this Research Topic is to collect high-quality research on bioinspired materials with superwettability for solving real-life scientific problems. Moreover, this Research Topic will emphasize recent advances in the applications of bioinspired materials with superwettability in various fields such as controllable fabrication of functional materials, anti-biofouling, biosensing and bioseparation, etc.

The scope of this Research Topic ranges from new methods and strategies for designing and fabricating novel bioinspired materials with superwettability to specific applications such as antifouling, biosensing, bioseparation, specific adhesion. The types of collected manuscripts consist of Original Research, Review, and Perspective articles.