gus_massa 11 days ago

I agree, but let's try to explain the microdetails of the scenario.

The new material is very hydrophilic, so the water prefer to be attached to it than been vapor.

If the wire is even more hydrophilic then the droplets will jump and collect around the wires, but they will be so attached that they will not fall down from the lower extreme of the wires.

If the wires are not so hydrophilic, the water will prefer to keep attached to the surface, or even the droplets will be smaller to avoid the wires and the collection will stop earlier.

Tweaking smartly the hydrophilic values and separations between the wires and the separation with the surface you may get interesting capillarity effect, but the water will be trapped again.

Anyway, it's difficult to look at all the details, but at the end of the day "The second law of thermodynamics. It's now trivially easy to create a free energy:"

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cyberax 11 days ago

To add to this, there is a well-known "free energy" device design: have wicks moving water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir. Then use it to drive a water wheel.

It sounds good on paper because everybody knows that water can travel up a wick. But of course, if the end of the wick in the upper reservoir is submerged in the water, then water will just as happily travel _down_ the wick. And if the end of the wick is in free air, then water will not drip from it because the same capillary forces prevent it.