Biomimetic directional transport for sustainable liquid usage

Abstract

Through hundreds of millions of evolution, animals and plants have possessed their unique structures to adapt to natural variations. As a familiar process, liquid transportation plays an important part in both production and life, and researchers focus on how to achieve this process in a convenient and efficient way without energy input. Inspired by nature, various bioinspired structures are reported and have won multiple achievements. This review starts from basic theory about surface wettability, and then summarises the creatures with special liquid transport functions as well as crucial structures that cause this phenomenon. Next, the recent articles about transporting liquid by bioinspired materials are introduced. Finally, we proposed a brief conclusion and the prospect of bionic materials in the future.