Lessons from Nature: Bioinspired Mechanically Durable and Self-healing Superliquiphilic/phobic Surfaces

Living nature, through some 3 billion years of evolution, has developed materials, objects, and processes that function from the nanoscale to the macroscale. The understanding of the functions provided by species and processes found in living nature can guide us to design and produce bioinspired surfaces for various applications^1,2,3. There are a large number of flora and fauna with properties of commercial interest. A facile, substrate-independent, multilayered nanoparticle/binder composite coating technique has been developed to produce various combinations of water and oil repellency and affinity with self-cleaning properties. These coatings provide the basis to fabricate surfaces for a range of applications including self-cleaning, anti-fouling, anti-smudge, optical transparency, anti-fogging, anti-icing, low drag, water purification, and oil??"water separation.

Speaker: Bharat Bhushan, Academy Professor, Ohio State University