Pollen-Engraved Dual Porosity Ceramic Beads From Liquid Marbles for Environmental Remediation

Liquid marbles, renowned for their non-wetting behavior, have been extensively investigated in the fields of controlled delivery, droplet reactors, and biomaterial storage. However, the transition in wetting interactions between the liquid droplet and the coating particles has not been clearly studied, and leveraging this transformation for new applications remains unexplored. Here, we use UV irradiation along with mechanical vibration to switch the wetting state at the liquid marble interface from Cassie-Baxter to Cassie-impregnating during a one-step process that converts liquid marbles into ceramic green bodies. Renewable biowaste pollen is, for the first time, employed to impart both surface patterning and internal porosity together with a photocured polymer, yielding dual-porosity ceramic adsorbents that achieve up to 2.88 times higher pollutant removal efficiency, particularly for heavy metal ions and nanoplastics. Furthermore, different pollen species exhibit distinct pollutant selectivity, underscoring their potential for environmental remediation.