What will waterproof fabric look like in the future? Like a snake, molting comes from repairing

Researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany have developed a material that can shed skin like a snake The material consists of three layers: waterproof layer at the top, water-soluble polymer in the middle and superhydrophobic silicon film at the bottom Most fabrics are easy to scratch and tear, and when the top layer of this "snake skin" fabric is scratched, the water will penetrate and dissolve the water-soluble layer, which will automatically fall off the outer layer, with waterproof and durable function The video screenshot of "snake skin" material on YouTube (source: new media of Peking University) lotus leaf looks ordinary, but scientists get inspiration from its surface structure and develop waterproof fabric that can effectively self clean According to J ü rgen R ü he, a researcher of Microsystem engineering at the University of Freiburg, Germany, there have been many papers on superhydrophobic surfaces and lotus leaf like materials, but they all have the same disadvantages, i.e low mechanical strength and friability Even though the strength is improved to a certain extent by increasing the size of the surface concave and convex (such as micrometer scale), most of the lotus leaf like materials are easy to be scratched or torn, but also damage their waterproof performance To solve this problem, the R ü he team took inspiration from reptiles and developed a material that can shed the outer layer The R ü he team improved the superhydrophobic material into a self-healing material with three-layer structure The top layer is a hydrophobic membrane composed of poly (1H, 1H, 2h, 2h perfluoroedecyl acrylate) (PFA), also known as "nanograss", which obtains hydrophobic properties from the sharp, conical nanostructures protruding from its surface Below this layer is polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), a water-soluble polymer used in a variety of medical applications The bottom layer is a superhydrophobic film of silica nanograss Such a three-layer structure ensures the "molting" performance of the material When the surface layer is worn, the material is immersed in water and the interlayer is dissolved in water, which makes the damaged top layer loose and fall off, exposing the new hydrophobic layer below This is just like "snake sloughing" in appearance Although it is a multi-layer superposition, the interaction superposition of the two types of materials is a major technical innovation of new waterproof materials, and it is difficult to achieve close fitting of different materials without mutual impairment The interlayer also improves the overall strength of the material, which is more than ten times higher than that of the single layer However, the material is still in the laboratory stage, and a key problem to overcome is that the external waterproof layer is too easy to be damaged Original author: dyllan Furness original link: https://