Controlled Integration of Interconnected Pores under Polymeric Surfaces for Low Adhesion and Antiscaling Performance

Abstract

Low-adhesive surfaces have been highlighted due to the potentials to mitigate fouling issues by preventing unwanted substances from adhering. Realizing superhydrophobicity with 3D surface structures/chemical modifiers or fabricating lubricantassisted slippery surfaces has been demonstrated to realize lowadhesive surfaces. However, they still need to overcome the transition to Wenzel from Cassie states of droplets on 3D surface structures or the lubricant depletion issues of slippery surfaces for sustainable operations. Herein, we report the fabrication of lowadhesive polymeric surfaces, neither assisted by 3D surface structures/chemical modifiers nor lubricants, which is realized by embedding the interconnected pore networks underneath the top smooth surface using a water steaming method. The fabricated silicone surfaces exhibit low-adhesive properties due to the stress concentration effects generated by the subsurface-structured pores, favorable for easy detachment of the adherent from the surface. Our platform can be exploited to lower adhesion of superhydrophilic surfaces or to achieve ultralow-adhesive properties upon combination with superhydrophobicity. Finally, scale precipitation tests reveal 4.2 times lower scale accumulation of our lowadhesive polymeric surfaces than that in control samples.

Droplets in soft materials

“…(d) Schematics describing the fabrication process of porous polydimethylsiloxane flexible films with smooth surfaces. (e) Schematics of the infiltrated water droplet contact on the handling substrates with different wettabilities during the water steaming process and SEM images of the materials 55 . Scale bars: 50 μm.…”

“…Steam etching is another useful method to introduce droplets in viscous precursors 54,55 . This idea has been demonstrated in fabricating large‐area porous PDMS thin films.…”

“…It finally leads to different rough surfaces (Figure 4e). Further application demonstrations suggest that embedding pore networks within an elastomer, neither assisted by 3D surface structures/chemical modifiers nor lubricants, can lead to low surface adhesion 55 . This might imply a new way to develop self‐cleaning surfaces.…”

Sustainable scale resistance on a bioinspired synergistic microspine coating with a collectible liquid barrier

“…1d, most of the reported surfaces can display anti-scaling capability during a relatively short time (<100 h), especially for dynamic scaling conditions. For instance, the smooth porous PDMS reduces the scale precipitation on bare PDMS by 76% with a flow rate of 4 L min −1 for 3 h. 33 For a longer service time (>100 h), most of them can only work under static scaling conditions. For example, the superhydrophobic PFSC-EDTA coating can improve scale resistance by 88.6% under static conditions.…”

“…For example, the superhydrophobic PFSC-EDTA coating can improve scale resistance by 88.6% under static conditions. 21 Compared with them, [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][33][34][35][36][37][38] our BLOCK coating apparently surpasses the others in terms of scale-resistant performance and longevity (ca. 98% reduction vs stainless steel for 840 h).…”