Superaerophilic Wedge-Shaped Channels with Precovered Air Film for Efficient Subaqueous Bubbles/Jet Transportation...

Pumpless and directed gas transportation in aqueous environments has promising application prospects in various domains. So far, researches on gas transportation based on superaerophilic channels are limited to the transportation of fewer bubbles with low transportation velocity. How to enhance the transportation velocity and realize the transportation of a large quantity of bubbles (especially for gas jet) for practical applications remain unclear. Here, a half-open wedge-shaped channel with subaqueous superaerophilicity is fabricated, which demonstrates excellent bubble affinity and can realize the pumpless and directed bubble transportation. It is proposed that a Laplace force is the main driving force during the transportation and the magnitude of the force is influenced by both the wedge angle of the channel and geometric parameters of the bubble whereas the direction of the force is determined by the orientation of the channel. By applying a precovered air film on the subaqueous superaerophilic wedge-shaped channel, bubbles demonstrate a higher transportation velocity. Additionally, the prepared channel shows an outstanding affinity to oxygen jet at high flux, which can be utilized to transport oxygen for continuous subaqueous oxygen supplementation.