Nepenthes pitcher-inspired lubricant-infused slippery surface with superior anti-corrosion durability, hot water repellency and scratch resistance

A facile approach to fabricate a stabilized slippery lubricant-infused porous surface with dynamic omniphobicity for self-cleaning

Developing a slippery lubricant-infused porous surface (SLIPS) is an important strategy for fabricating dynamically omniphobic surfaces. In this study, biocompatible and non-toxic liquid silicone rubber, TiO2 nanoparticles, and dimethyl silicone oil were used to fabricate a SLIPS. Subsequently, systematic investigation was conducted to explore its associated properties and address existing challenges in this field. The chosen lubricant exhibited a strong chemical affinity towards the substrate, eliminating the need for any functionalization treatment prior to infusion. In addition, the fabricated SLIPS exhibited excellent dynamic omniphobicity as well as shear stability, thermal stability, chemical stability, and mechanical stability. Moreover, it demonstrated good self-cleaning performance for droplets, with varying surface energies, temperatures, and pH values, as well as for common dyes and contaminants. In addition, damage from external forces could self-repair on the SLIPS, which is beneficial for extending the service life and application range.

Versatile Dynamic Bioactive Lubricant-Infused Surface for Effective Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells

The rarity of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and the complexity of blood components present major challenges for the efficient isolation of CTCs in blood. The coexisting matters could interfere with the detection of CTCs by adhering to the binding sites on the material surface, leading to the reduced accuracy of biomarker capture in blood. Herein, we developed dynamic bioactive lubricant-infused slippery surfaces by grafting the 1H,1H,2H,2H-heptadecafluorodecyl acrylate polymer and 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid polymer brushes on quartz plates by UV light-initiated and then grafted cancer cell-binding peptides via reversible catechol-boronate chemistry between phenylboronic acid groups and 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine groups of peptides for high-efficient capture of CTCs and nondestructive release of the desired cells in sugar response. Patterned dynamic bioactive lubricant-infused surfaces (PDBLISs) further exhibited the improved capture efficiency of CTCs and more effective antifouling properties for nonspecific cells and blood components. Moreover, the PDBLIS can efficiently capture rare cancer cells from the mimic of cancer patient's blood samples. We anticipate that the strategy we proposed would be used in further clinical diagnosis of complicated biofluids related to a variety of tumors and exhibit good prospects and potential in future liquid biopsies.

Biomimetic superhydrophobic metal/nonmetal surface manufactured by etching methods: A mini review

As an emerging fringe science, bionics integrates the understanding of nature, imitation of nature, and surpassing nature in one aspect, and it organically combines the synergistic complementarity of function and structure-function integrated materials which is of great scientific interest. By imitating the microstructure of a natural biological surface, the bionic superhydrophobic surface prepared by human beings has the properties of self-cleaning, anti-icing, water collection, anti-corrosion and oil-water separation, and the preparation research methods are increasing. The preparation methods of superhydrophobic surface include vapor deposition, etching modification, sol-gel, template, electrostatic spinning, and electrostatic spraying, which can be applied to fields such as medical care, military industry, ship industry, and textile. The etching modification method can directly modify the substrate, so there is no need to worry about the adhesion between the coating and the substrate. The most obvious advantage of this method is that the obtained superhydrophobic surface is integrated with the substrate and has good stability and corrosion resistance. In this article, the different preparation methods of bionic superhydrophobic materials were summarized, especially the etching modification methods, we discussed the detailed classification, advantages, and disadvantages of these methods, and the future development direction of the field was prospected.