Electrospinning water harvesters inspired by spider silk and beetle

Fabricating a water harvester that exhibits desirable performance is an essential task to solve the fresh water scarcity issue. In this manuscript, we introduced a bio-inspired concept for a novel bead-on-string nanofiber with hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity simultaneously by electrospinning technique, that can be used as a high-performance water harvester. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and water contact angle measurement showed the bio-inspired structures of novel water harvesters and a custom-made setup was used to evaluate its water harvesting ability. The water harvesting efficiency of our membrane was determined to be 744 mg/cm2/h, which was 91% higher than the virgin PAN membrane. The durability was also tested and reported.