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Previous attempts to do this have coated the threads with metal. But that is expensive. As they describe in ACS Nano, Dr Stachewicz and her student Daniel Ura have done it by changing the way the threads are spun, which is cheap.
之前的嘗試是在螺紋上涂上一層金屬，但成本很高。正如他們?cè)凇禔CS Nano》雜志中描述的那樣，斯塔切薇茲博士和她的學(xué)生丹尼爾·尤拉通過改變紡線的方式實(shí)現(xiàn)了這一目標(biāo)，這種方式成本很低。
At the moment, those threads are created by a process called melt-spinning. This involves melting the polymer and pushing the resulting liquid through a hollow needle, out of a hole in the needle's tip and onto a spinning drum, where it cools and solidifies. Dr Stachewicz and Mr Ura propose instead to use a technique called electrospinning. This also involves a hollow needle. But instead of being melted, the polymeris dissolved in a solvent, and instead of being propelled from the needle's tip by pressure from behind, it is attracted to the drum by the creation of an electrical potential difference between the drum and the needle. As the stream of dissolved polymer travels through the air, the solvent evaporates, leaving behind a solid thread.
目前，這些線程是通過一種叫做熔融紡絲的過程創(chuàng)建的。其中包括熔化聚合物，將產(chǎn)生的液體通過一根空心的針，從針尖的洞里出來，放到旋轉(zhuǎn)的圓筒上，在那里冷卻并凝固。斯塔切薇茲博士和尤拉先生提議使用一種叫做靜電紡絲的技術(shù)，這也涉及空心針。但是聚合物并沒有融化，而是溶解在一種溶劑中，而且它不是被來自針后的壓力從針尖推進(jìn)，而是被針和針之間產(chǎn)生的電位差吸引到針筒上。當(dāng)溶解的聚合物在空氣中流動(dòng)時(shí)，溶劑蒸發(fā)，留下一個(gè)固體線。
One consequence of electrospinning is that the voltage attracting the thread from needle to drum also attracts or repels, according to their polarity, the charges on the molecules within. This reorients those molecules, aligning them (and thus their charges) in a way that does not happen in a melt-spun thread. That can create the sort of polarity difference between the interior and the exterior of a thread the two researchers were looking for.
靜電紡絲的一個(gè)結(jié)果是，根據(jù)針管內(nèi)部分子的極性，將線從針管吸引到滾筒的電壓也會(huì)吸引或排斥其中的電荷。這就會(huì)改變這些分子的方向，使它們(以及它們的電荷)排列整齊，而這在熔融紡線中是不會(huì)發(fā)生的。這可以產(chǎn)生兩位研究人員正在尋找的線的內(nèi)部和外部之間的某種極性差異。
Dr Stachewicz and Mr Ura experimented with different potential differences between needle and drum and eventually found one that resulted in meshes able to collect 50% more water than commercial versions, at no extra cost of production. At the moment these are just prototypes, but they expect soon to have a practical version which can be made available for sale. And that will certainly improve the lives of people who rely for their survival on drawing water not from a well, but from thin air.
斯塔切薇茲博士和尤拉先生對(duì)針和滾筒之間的不同電勢差進(jìn)行了實(shí)驗(yàn)，最終找到了一種能比商業(yè)版本多收集50%水的網(wǎng)眼，而且不需要額外的生產(chǎn)成本。目前這些還只是原型，但他們希望很快就能有一個(gè)可供出售的實(shí)用版本。這肯定會(huì)改善那些不是從井里，而是從稀薄的空氣中取水為生的人們的生活。
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