Facile approach to design a stable, damage resistant, slippery, and omniphobic surface

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 1; no. 33; pp. 19157 - 19168
• Main Authors: Jamil, Muhammad Imran, Song, Lina, Zhu, Juan, Ahmed, Numan, Zhan, Xiaoli, Chen, Fengqiu, Cheng, Dangguo, Zhang, Qinghua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 20.05.2020; The Royal Society of Chemistry
• Subjects: Adhesive strength; Chemistry; Cold water; Cures; Damage; Defrosting; Freezing; Liquids; Melting points; Nanoparticles; Porosity; Room temperature; Slip resistance; Soot; Substrates; Subzero temperature
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/d0ra01786h

Creating a robust omniphobic surface that repels various liquids would have broad technological implications for areas ranging from biomedical devices and fuel transport to architecture. The present omniphobic surfaces still have the problems of complex fabrication methods, high cost, and being environmentally harmful. To address these challenges, here we report a novel process to design a non-fluorinated, long-term slippery omniphobic surface of candle soot nanoparticles with a silicone binder that cures at room temperature. The porosity, nanoscale roughness, strong affinity of the substrate with the silicone lubricant, and retention of lubricant after curing of the binder play an important role in its stability and low ice adhesion strength at sub-zero temperature. The developed surface exhibits damage resistant slippery properties, repellency to several liquids with different surface tensions including blood, delay in freezing point along with ultra-low ice adhesion strength (2 kPa) and maintains it even below 7 kPa under harsh environmental conditions; 90 frosting/defrosting cycles at −90 °C; 2 months under an ice layer; 2 months at 60 °C; 9 days flow in acidic/basic water and exposure to super-cold water. In addition, this novel technique is cheap, easy to fabricate, environmentally benign and suitable for large-scale applications. A facile approach to design a stable, damage resistant slippery, and omniphobic surface.