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research article

Bio-Inspired Fluorine-Free Self-Cleaning Polymer Coatings

Wasser, Lionel
•
Vacche, Sara Dalle  
•
Karasu, Feyza  
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December 1, 2018
Coatings

Bio-inspired fluorine-free and self-cleaning polymer coatings were developed using a combination of self-assembly and UV-printing processes. Nasturtium and lotus leaves were selected as natural template surfaces. A UV-curable acrylate oligomer and three acrylated siloxane comonomers with different molecular weights were used. The spontaneous migration of the comonomers towards the polymer-air interface was found to be faster for comonomers with higher molecular weight, and enabled to create hydrophobic surfaces with a water contact angle (WCA) of 105 degrees. The replication fidelity was limited for the nasturtium surface, due to a lack of replication of the sub-micron features. It was accurate for the lotus leaf surface whose hierarchical texture, comprising micropapillae and sub-micron crystalloids, was well reproduced in the acrylate/comonomer material. The WCA of synthetic replica of lotus increased from 144 degrees to 152 degrees with increasing creep time under pressure to 5 min prior to polymerization. In spite of a water sliding angle above 10 degrees, the synthetic lotus surface was self-cleaning with water droplets when contaminated with hydrophobic pepper particles, provided that the droplets had some kinetic energy.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.3390/coatings8120436
Web of Science ID

WOS:000455200300022

Author(s)
Wasser, Lionel
Vacche, Sara Dalle  
Karasu, Feyza  
Mueller, Luca
Castellino, Micaela
Vitale, Alessandra
Bongiovanni, Roberta
Leterrier, Yves  
Date Issued

2018-12-01

Published in
Coatings
Volume

8

Issue

12

Start page

436

Subjects

Materials Science, Coatings & Films

•

Materials Science

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self-cleaning

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lotus

•

nasturtium

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siloxane surfactants

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acrylates

•

photopolymerization

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uv nanoimprint lithography

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pdms template

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slippery surfaces

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water-repellent

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films

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wettability

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stress

•

time

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LPAC  
Available on Infoscience
January 23, 2019
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/153830
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