The fabrication of a passive water removal system on aluminum using laser ablation has been reported and explained in the reacent issue of journal Applied Materials and Interfaces under the title “Capillary-Driven Water Transport by Contrast Wettability-Based Durable Surfaces“, the paper is fruit of the collaboration of the SURFICE network: FT Technologies UK (England, led by Dr. Tanmoy Maitra), the University of Graz (Austria, Prof. Anna Maria Coclite), and the University of Milano-Bicocca (SEFI Lab, Prof. Carlo Antonini and Irene Tagliaro), in which two early stage researcher participated as first authors: ESR1. Luca Stendardo from UNIMIB and Theodoros Dimitradis from FT Technologies, doing his Ph.D. in TUGraz.
Control the water flow through driven capillary forces due to contrast wettability can be useful for mitigating the undesired effects of water and ice in sensors or other devices operating in extreme environments. This paper is a good example of durable and low environmental impact devices, confirmed by both laboratory-based artificial tests and a one-year exposure to natural weathering in Miami, Florida, USA, a location with conditions four times more aggressive than those in Europe. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.3c03840