Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces

Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces

Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) are artificial surface coatings derived from the Nephentes pitcher plant.^[1] The slippery peristome inside the plant’s pitchers prevents the escape of attracted insects. Based on this principle, rough and porous surfaces are infused with suitable lubricants to create omniphobic slippery surfaces.^[2] In studies, SLIPS were shown to be potential antifouling surfaces for both biomedical and marine applications.^[3,4] The variation of bulk materials such as PDMS or acrylates, methods of pore formation, and infusion of different lubricants offers a wide field of research. The search for alternative environmentally friendly, sustainable, non-toxic materials is favourable.

Students working on this project: Thorsten Marochow, Onur Özcan, Regina Kopecz

[1] H. F. Bohn et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. (2004), DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0405885101.

[2] T.-S. Wong et al., Nature (2011), DOI: 10.1038/nature10447.

[3] D. C. Leslie et al., Nat. Biotechnol. (2014), DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3020.

[4] L. Xiao et al., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces (2013), DOI: 10.1021/am402635p.