Passive water ascent in a tall, scalable synthetic tree

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dc.contributor.authorShi, Weiweien
dc.contributor.authorDalrymple, Richard M.en
dc.contributor.authorMcKenny, Collin J.en
dc.contributor.authorMorrow, David S.en
dc.contributor.authorRashed, Ziad T.en
dc.contributor.authorSurinach, Daniel A.en
dc.contributor.authorBoreyko, Jonathan B.en
dc.contributor.departmentMechanical Engineeringen
dc.contributor.departmentBiomedical Engineering and Mechanicsen
dc.date.accessioned2020-08-21T14:05:07Zen
dc.date.available2020-08-21T14:05:07Zen
dc.date.issued2020en
dc.description.abstractThe transpiration cycle in trees is powered by a negative water potential generated within the leaves, which pumps water up a dense array of xylem conduits. Synthetic trees can mimic this transpiration cycle, but have been confined to pumping water across a single microcapillary or microfluidic channels. Here, we fabricated tall synthetic trees where water ascends up an array of large diameter conduits, to enable transpiration at the same macroscopic scale as natural trees. An array of 19 tubes of millimetric diameter were embedded inside of a nanoporous ceramic disk on one end, while their free end was submerged in a water reservoir. After saturating the synthetic tree by boiling it underwater, water can flow continuously up the tubes even when the ceramic disk was elevated over 3 m above the reservoir. A theory is developed to reveal two distinct modes of transpiration: an evaporation-limited regime and a flow-limited regime.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (CBET-1653631). The photograph of the redwoods in Fig. 1a was taken by John Lloyd and used with his permission.en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-57109-zen
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/99799en
dc.identifier.volume10en
dc.language.isoen_USen
dc.publisherNature Researchen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.titlePassive water ascent in a tall, scalable synthetic treeen
dc.title.serialScientific Reporten
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden

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