Surface sticky problems from various solid foulants inhibit us from the access to clean toilets, hygiene medical ware, and high-efficient energy efficiency. They vastly exist in many industrial, medical, and household interfaces, and they dramatically dysfunction the well-designed surface structures by sticking on them. In contrast, nature has provided us abundant examples of keeping surfaces clean, from duck feather to lotus leaf, to springtail skin, to pitcher plant rim, and to many other insect/animal surfaces. These examples share some common materials design principles for antifouling, particularly for solid repellency: extremely smooth or extremely rough.
Herein, we have explored new design principles for developing solid-repellent coatings as well as enhancing their mechanical durability. In particular, we proposed a lubrication-on-smooth surface design mechanism, and fabricated partially-crosslinked omniphobic coatings that can repel a broad range of foulants, comprised of both liquid and solid phases. By integrating of the classic wetting and tribology models, we introduce a new material design parameter for abrasion-resistant polymeric coatings. On the other hand, we combined Chang window and Gao’s mechanical biocidal mechanics model, and proposed the explanation on solid-repellency mechanism on extremely rough nanostructures. These design principles could enable the innovative creation of solid-repellent coatings to a wide variety of industrial and medical settings, including wind turbine blades, heat exchanges, and antifouling robotics.
 

Bioinspiration, Solid Repellency, Interface Mechanics