Abstract Performance enhancement of thermal desalination processes requires the excellent water separation capabilities in demisters. However, in high-speed gas flow, the re-entrainment of captured water from the surfaces to the gas flow can considerably decrease the water collection capabilities and the corresponding separation efficiency. Herein, we report fabrication of micro-structured polymer surfaces with excellent water capturing properties in low- and high-speed gas flow conditions by using a facile molding process. Inspired by the surfaces of bio-species, the fabricated surfaces possess vertically-aligned micro-scale cone arrays and sets of microchannels to significantly enhance the capillary pressure. As a result, those hybrid-structured surfaces exhibit up to 2.4 and 4.7 times higher excellent water collection capabilities than control planar at low- and high-speed flow conditions, respectively. In addition, the mist eliminator with the hybrid surfaces performs 1.8 times higher water collection behavior than the control mist eliminator with bare surfaces. The results show the promise of developing the surfaces with engineered structures for significantly enhancing water collection without changing the shapes of flow passages in target objects.

中文翻译：

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在高速流动中增强仿生功能表面的水收集，以实现高性能除雾器

摘要 热脱盐工艺的性能提升需要除雾器中出色的水分离能力。然而，在高速气流中，捕获的水从表面重新夹带到气流中会大大降低水收集能力和相应的分离效率。在此，我们报告了通过使用简单的成型工艺在低速和高速气流条件下制造具有优异吸水性能的微结构聚合物表面。受生物物种表面的启发，制造的表面具有垂直排列的微型锥阵列和微通道组，以显着提高毛细管压力。结果，那些混合结构的表面表现出高达 2.4 和 4。在低速和高速流动条件下，出色的集水能力分别比控制平面高 7 倍。此外，具有混合表面的除雾器的集水性能比具有裸露表面的控制除雾器高 1.8 倍。结果表明，开发具有工程结构的表面可以显着增强集水效果，而无需改变目标物体中流道的形状。