Simple, Effective, and Ecofriendly Strategy to Inhibit Droplet Bouncing on Hydrophobic Weed Leaves

Abstract

Despite small-molecule surfactants and polymers being widely used as pesticide adjuvants to inhibit droplet bouncing and splashing, they still have intrinsic drawbacks either in the easy wind drift and evaporation, the unfavorable wettability, or the usage of nonrenewable resources. In this paper, we found that upon droplet impacting, 1D nanofibers assembled from natural glycyrrhizic acid (GL) could pin on the rough hydrophobic surface and delay the retraction rate of droplets effectively. Using GL as a tank-mixed adjuvant, the efficiency of glyphosate to control the weed growth was improved significantly in the field experiment, which addressed the dilemmas of current adjuvants elegantly. Our work not only provides a constructive way to overcome droplet bouncing but also prompted us to verify in future if all 1D nanofibers assembled from different small molecules can display similar control efficiencies.