Scalable fabrication of lubricant-impregnated patterns for transparent and self-repairing omniphobic surface

Abstract

Slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS) that repels liquids of various surface tensions, is capable of being self-resilience, transparent and self-cleaning, receiving widespread attention. As SLIPS has been investigated, its performance has gradually improved, but conventional SLIPSs were manufactured through complex processes such as layer-by-layer, MEMS, and inverse colloidal monolayers and have been made difficult to use in actual industries due to their low practicality just like scalable, patternable and flexible fabrication. Herein, we fabricate a facile and inexpensive electro-sprayed slippery liquid-infused porous surface (E-SLIPS) by electro-spraying method that deposites microspheres using electrostatic repulsion, improving not only practicality mentioned above but also keeping low sliding angle (< 8°) and contant angle hysteresis (< 10°) for liquids of various surface tensions (23 ~ 72 mN/m), high transmittance (~ 92 %) and high mechanical damage tolerance (critical length: 2.77 mm) of conventional SLIPS properties. We look forward to expanding into industrial applications that have traditionally been carried out at the laboratory level such as solar cell, condensation heat transfer, fluid transport and anti-fouling in extreme environments.