Transparent Slippery Surfaces Made with Sustainable Porous Cellulose Lauroyl Ester Films

Abstract

In recent years, liquid repellent surfaces have attracted considerable attention because of their wide array of potential applications. In the present study, slippery surfaces were fabricated using novel sustainable, nanoporous cellulose lauroyl ester (CLE) films and slippery lubrication fluid. The nanoporous CLE films were obtained after spray-coating target surfaces using a nanoparticle suspension of CLE that was prepared via nanoprecipitation. After the deposition of the slippery liquid within the porous network, the obtained slippery surfaces exhibit both excellent liquid repellency upon liquid impact and anti-icing properties (by significantly retarding the icing time). Three-dimensional droplet manipulation was also achieved on these surfaces by taking advantage of the materials’ low contact angle hysteresis and low adhesion property.