Just In
- 1 hr ago Personality Traits Of April Born Babies: From Being Witty, To Charismatic And More, They Are Full Of Sheer Joy
- 1 hr ago Festivals In April 2024: Check Out The Full List Of Tyohar And Vrats That Will Fall This Month
- 3 hrs ago April Fool's Day 2024: Strange And Unusual Pranks That Were Pulled Off On 1st April
- 7 hrs ago Daily Horoscope, 29 March 2024: Gemini Businessmen Should Be Careful, Leo May Not Feel Well Today
Don't Miss
- News Bihar: RJD, Congress, Left Leaders Announce Seat-Sharing Formula For Lok Sabha Elections 2024
- Finance 1:10 Split, 3 Bonus, 70% Dividend: Defence PSU Fundamentally Strong Pick; Anand Rathi Sets Highest Rs 250 TP
- Movies Crew X Review: Fans Drool Over Bebo's Boldness, Tabu's Glamour And Kriti Sanon's Stunts
- Sports Bengaluru FC vs Odisha FC ISL 2023-24: Preview, Schedule, Playing XI, Live Streaming
- Technology A Win for Pixel Users: Google’s Pixel 8 Will Get Gemini Nano After All With the Next Feature Drop
- Automobiles Xiaomi SU7 Electric Sedan Variant Details – All You Need To Know
- Education TANCET 2024 Results released: Know how to check
- Travel Explore Tamil Nadu's Diverse Wedding Venues
Self-Cleaning Walls And Water Striding Robots For You!
There is a property called super hydrophobia that allows water to bead up and rolls off flowers, caterpillars and some insects. This property also allows insects like water striders to walk effortlessly on water.
The legs of the water striders are highly hydrophobic. Hydrophobic means water really doesn't like their legs and that's what keeps them on top. Moreover they can hold about 15 times their weight.
Caterpillars, water striders, and the lotus achieve super hydrophobia through a two-level structure — a hydrophobic waxy surface made super hydrophobic by the addition of microscopic hair-like structures that may be covered by even smaller hairs, greatly increasing the surface area of the organism and making it impossible for water droplets to stick.
Now, researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Japan's RIKEN institute used the super fast supercomputer at RIKEN, the fastest in the world when the research started in 2005, to design a computer simulation to perform tens of thousands of experiments that studied how surfaces behaved under many different conditions. They used the supercomputer to "rain" virtual water droplets of different sizes and speeds on surfaces, which had pillars of various heights and widths and different amounts of space between the pillars.
The researchers observed that there was a critical pillar height, depending on the particular structure of the pillars and their chemical properties, beyond which water droplets cannot penetrate. If the droplet can penetrate the pillar structure and reach the waxy surface, it is in the merely hydrophobic Wenzel state, named for Robert Wenzel, who found the phenomenon in nature in 1936. If it the droplet cannot penetrate the pillars to touch the surface, the structure is in the super hydrophobic Cassie state, named for A.B.D. Cassie, who discovered it in 1942, and the droplet rolls away.
This kind of simulation - we call it 'computer-aided surface design' - can really help engineers in designing a better nanostructured surface. In the Cassie state, the water droplet stays on top and it can carry dirt away. In the Wenzel state, it's sort of stuck on the surface and lacks self-cleaning functionality. When you build a nanomachine - a nanorobot - in the future, you will want to build it so it can self-clean.
A research paper describing the study has been published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- insyncHere Is Why Male Office Workers In Japan Are Complaining Of Mentrual Pain!
- menIconic Japanese Fashion Designer Issey Miyake Passes Away At 84: Tribute
- womenWorld's Oldest Person Kane Tanaka Passes Away At 119: Know Her Secret To A Long Life
- pulseDolls Outnumber Humans In A Village In Japan
- diet fitnessThe Japanese Morning Banana Diet For Weight Loss
- lifeThings Indians Need To Adopt From Japan
- lifeWhy So Many Earthquakes Strike Japan?
- pulseEver Wondered Why Japanese Celebrate Doll Festival?
- anecdotesTrapping Neurotics
- pulseNow, A Robot Can Help You Shop!
- lifeVisit The Happiest Places In The World!
- insyncLonesome Japanese Resort To Renting Friends