Talk:Lotus effect

Something's fishy
http://neverwet.com/product-characteristics.php The above product is a super hydrophobic spray designed for clothing. It uses the same picture as used in this article, yet claims a 170 degree contact angle, whereas the picture, when used in this wikipedia entry, has a 147 degree contact angle. Who had the image first, and who is correct? Is that even a lotus leaf below it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.84.117 (talk) 00:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. 170 degrees doesn't look right, but 147 is plausible. Nadiatalent (talk) 22:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Original paper
Hi, I took the freedom to add the original paper on the Lotus effect. The other one does not seem fitting to me. But I left it there. Wolfram.

language cleaning
Im cleaning this up a tad to make it more smooth to a native English reader. By the time you read this, its probably done :D

Liastnir 05:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, it's being cleaned up by someone with poor grammar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.225.208 (talk) 21:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up
Whew, the most recent editor is correct that this page does need serious cleaning up. The topic is not, however, trivial and has significant technological and commercial significance.Jamesfbrown (talk) 23:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * However, it is not top priority among plant articles, particularly as it pertains only to a single genus of plants. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. It pertains only to a single genus of plants? The so-called Lotus-effect is not limited to the Lotus-plant - it can be found in a vast variety in monocot/dicot-plants. It is not of top-priority among plant articles, as the topic does not deal with plants but with physical effects on their surfaces. Regarding the pictures: 1. is it really taro (Colocasia esculenta)? 2. there are SEM-studies mentioned, which helped to understand the surface structure which is needed for Lotus-effect. No SEM-image available? Regards 87.139.57.58 (talk) 11:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not all
There's even more scientific clean-up required. The effect was known to science since the 30's, when papers which contained important ideas such as the Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter model of wettability were first published. Wilhelm Barthlott may be credited with the discovery of the lotus effect in 1977 but surface science had already produced "superhydrophobic" fabirc, (i.e. with a greater contact angle than the lotus plant), way back in 1945.

See document: “Artificial Lotus Leaf” Prepared Using a 1945 Patent and a Commercial Textile Langmuir (July 2006), 22 (14), pg. 5998-6000

Serious clean up is necessary. Facts are outdated or incorrect in many cases. good luck... Lichao Gao; Thomas J. McCarthy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.151.165.137 (talk) 03:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarification needed
"Some plants show contact angles up to 160° and are called super-hydrophobic meaning that only 2–3% of a drop's surface is in contact." Can this be correct? Wouldn't the percentage of the surface area depend on the diameter of the drop? The new photo suggests a much greater percentage than this figure. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Correct. The shape of the drop changes as the drop gets larger: it gets less spherical and more pancake-like. In particular, the contact area percentage increases as the drop size increases. The contact angle, on the other hand, stays the same. That is, the problem is not scale-invariant. So a drop size must be specified in order to get quotable values for variables such as contact area percentage. 89.217.3.92 (talk) 12:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

More clarification needed
A recent change replaced "The hydrophobicity of a surface is determined by the contact angle." with "The hydrophobicity of a surface is related to its contact angle." The text that follows indicates that the contact angle is the only factor, so there is now a contradiction. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds Ok to me. Contact angle is merely a measure of hydrophobicity, not the "cause", which is intermolecular interactions. Thinking loud, I can imagine a "hydrophobic" nanoparticle in a sense that it repels water molecules, but is too small to measure any "contact angle". Materialscientist (talk) 22:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

And again
The following text was added after the removal of some text that seemed helpful. I have moved it here in the hope that someone more knowledgeable can incorporate it in a better way. "Analsis of surface structure of lotus leaf shows that it has micro buds which are covered with nano needles like wax crystals. This formation makes an hierarchical roughness structure . Due to this hierarchical structur, the air traps between the asperities of this structure which causes the formation of a composite interface between air-water droplet and water droplet-solid surface. This enhances the contact angle and reduces the adhesion with the surface." Nadiatalent (talk) 23:01, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

If your grandma can't understand you ...
... your words are probably too complicated.

Wikipedia is not a scientific journal. It's not supposed to mimic scientific publications. It's supposed to talk about high level concepts, yes, but without the pretentious phraseology of scientific journals (phrasings that no one wants to admit are really just the product of most scientists' general incapacity to speak clearly to normal people about their work.)

"As self-cleaning of superhydrophobic microscopic to nanoscopic surfaces is based on a purely physio-chemical effect it can be transferred onto technical surfaces on a biomimetic basis."

The above sentence is arcane, way too over-technical; to the vast majority of people who don't know how to read scientific papers, it says basically nothing. At most literal, all it's trying to say is that we can use the lotus effect in artificial surfaces by mimicking nature, *because* it's a pure physical-chemical process. That's a bit of a sticky-assed distinction, and it's a phrasing that taken out of context would imply that all "purely physio-chemical effects" can be used "on a biomimetic basis" (by mimicking nature), a claim that would be technically incorrect, given that not all physio-chemical effects take place on living organisms that need mimicking. Only the few people who habitually read scientific papers would recognize that this is not actually the claim being made. The claim that the sentence is really trying to make is that the lotus effect is *not* a result of the properties of the specific compounds made by the lotus; it's excluding all but physical chemistry. The sentence assumes that the reader already understands the context, a plant, and that the reader has perhaps considered that the effect may be due to something other than what the article claims, little bumps on the leaf, and moreoever it assumes that the reader has been attempting to account for the action of the leaf in as many ways as possible. The average, casual person does not do this; and this encyclopedia has to be for them too. The sentence as written doesn't fully abstract itself to a universal context, and so it takes shortcuts in its basic rudimentary logic, relying on an assumed context to transmit its full meaning even while it obscures that logic from the people who would most need to hear it, using an obtuse grammar and an overly-technical vocabulary.

Three rules for all scientific writing: 1.) K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid); 2.) "Don't just say what, say why;" 3.) "Don't just say why it happened, say why it's relevant. (If possible.)"

In any case, if this arcane inanity is going to make it here, I think we should at least word it in a way that everyone can understand.

"When it was discovered that the lotus effect comes from the physical-chemical properties of superhydrophobic surfaces at the microscopic to nanoscopic scale, and does not result from any of the specific chemical properties of the surface of the leaf, that discovery opened up the possibility of using this effect in our own manmade surfaces, by mimicking nature in a general way rather than a specific one."

I'm going to change the section specified, and anyone who isn't okay with that can go suck it or else start an edit war in violation of Wikipedia policy.

Sincerely, Anno Nymous Crane — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.47.114.150 (talk) 20:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Your sentence is much better. Even for professional scientists. 89.217.3.92 (talk) 12:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Appreciated. Plus the language should be friendly for dyslexics, mild aphasia recovery patients etc. 14.139.211.23 (talk) 12:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Technical Applications
The article mentions some companies but not others. I have nothing against an UNBIASED overview but I think the article itself should distinguish this too. My suggestion would be to, at first, split the technical applications into RESEARCH-driven aspects first (universities etc...), and then afterwards also have something about specific companies. And for the latter, I would recommend to sort based on time, to avoid any other bias if this or that company is listed. Wikipedia should try to remain as objective as possible without any favoritism. 2A02:8388:1641:4700:BE5F:F4FF:FECD:7CB2 (talk) 18:50, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Happens on carbon soot
Same phenomenon happens on soot or lamp black that develop from burning of fats and oils. 14.139.211.23 (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Lotus Effect, Self cleaning abilities of the leaf of Sacred Lotus - © W. Barthlott (Philipp Morris Foundation Munich 1999).webm

"micro-nanostructured surfaces"?
In the lede, the second paragraph, third sentence reads "The self-cleaning property of ultrahydrophobic micro-nanostructured surfaces was studied by..."(emphasis added) This is nonsensical. "Micro-" refers to something being too small to be seen by the naked eye (in some scientific contexts it means "one millionth"), whereas "nano-" refers to something considerably smaller still (its scientific meaning is "one billionth"). If something is "nano-" it is already far smaller than "micro-", so "micro-nano-" is as nonsensical as "super-mega-". Can anyone make sense of this, or offer guidance around how to correct this? Thanks. Bricology (talk) 20:45, 12 September 2021 (UTC)