Desert Beetles utilizes patterns of hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions on their backs to capture water from humid air. The Stenocara beetle, which lives in Africa's Namib desert, uses this mechanism on it's wings to collect water from fog in areas where normal condensation can't take place due to the lightness of the fog. The insect angles its wings forwards and upwards into the wind so that the water droplets in the fog collect on hydrophilic bumps and eventually become heavy enough to roll down the surrounding hydrophobic surface areas of the wing to the beetle's mouth.
This system is being put into practice by researchers in the U.S. who developed a way to texture surfaces in the way that that beetle's wings are textured. "Nanoparticles in the coating strongly attract water droplets and force them to form much smaller contact angles with the surface. As a result, the droplets flatten and merge to form a uniform, transparent sheet."
The coating also has potential implications for reflectivity on surfaces, especially glass. It has been shown to reduce reflectivity and allow more light to pass through the glass, which could be crucial for solar cell technology which is very applicable to sustainable building technologies and practices.
A little background...
Hydrophobic:
hydrophobicity is the physical property of a molecule that is repelled from a mass of water. Therefore hydrophobic surfaces repel the water from the surface.
Hydrophilic:
A hydrophilic molecule or portion of a molecule is one that has a tendency to interact with or be dissolved by, water and other polar substances. These molecules would increase the tendency of water to be attracted to, or collect in, a specific area.
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