Hydrophilic slippery surface enabled coarsening effect for rapid water harvesting

Summary Water harvesting through the condensation of vapor in air has the potential to alleviate water scarcity in arid regions around the globe. When water vapor is condensed on a cooled surface, tiny water droplets act as thermal barriers. Thus, they must be removed rapidly for efficient water harvesting. Passive technologies for droplet removal rely on in-site growth and direct contact of densely distributed droplets. However, it is challenging to remove submicrometer droplets that lead to a poor water harvesting rate. Here, we present a coarsening effect to rapidly remove water droplets with diameters