Ultraviolet-Driven Janus Foams with Wetting Gradients: Unidirectional Penetration Control for Underwater Bubbles

Abstract

Understanding the behavior of underwater bubbles and enabling their effective manipulation is important for bubble capture, collection, and transport. Here, to discuss the underwater permeation behavior of bubbles and critical influencing parameters in this process, the copper foams with tunable wettability were fabricated by utilizing the light-stimulated wettability response of TiO₂. The Janus copper foams had different wettability gradients from superhydrophobic/hydrophobic to superhydrophobic/hydrophilic after UV irradiation at different times, and the bubbles on the surfaces showed distinctly diverse penetration behaviors. In particular, the constructed superhydrophobic/hydrophilic surfaces showed more difficult to achieve bubble penetration than the fully superhydrophobic, superhydrophobic/hydrophobic surface. It was found that the wetting states of the foams exposed to different irradiation times underwater plays a crucial role in the bubble penetration behavior. In other words, the difficulty of bubble penetration depends on the difficulty of bubble transition from gas–liquid contact to gas–solid contact. This facile and low-cost fabrication approach for Janus foams provided a valuable approach to understand the penetration behaviors of underwater bubbles, which is significant for expanding potential applications in bubble capture, bubble transport, and control of unstable gas reactions in underwater conditions.