An All Hydrophilic Fluid Diode for Unidirectional Flow in Porous Systems

A fluid diode that allows fluid flow in one direction but blocks fluid flow in the opposite direction has wide applications including oil recovery, drug delivery, and lab-on-a-chip microfluidics. Many studies are conducted to facilitate directional liquid motion on the solid surface or across thin porous layers. However, the self-driven one-way flow inside porous systems still remains a significant challenge. Here, a novel all-hydrophilic fluid diode (AHFD) made of porous materials with asymmetric pores is reported, which allows capillary flow in a chosen direction. The direction-dependent flow process and the breakthrough pressure are experimentally and theoretically examined. The proposed AHFD can have many potential applications such as functional protective clothing, microfluidic valve, and oil–water separator, and the idea can be extended to develop other all lyophilic fluid diodes such as oleophilic diode.