Design of Abrasion-Resistant, Long-Lasting Antifog Coatings.

Fog formation is a common challenge for numerous applications, such as food packaging, mirrors, building windows, and freezer/refrigerator doors. Most notably, fog forms on the inner surfaces of prescription glasses and safety eyewear (particularly when used with a mask), face shields, and helmet lenses. Fogging is caused by the distortion of light from condensed water droplets present on a surface and can typically be prevented if the surface static water contact angle (θ) is less than ∼40°. Such a low contact angle can be readily achieved by either increasing the substrate surface energy or by engineering surface nanotexture. Unfortunately, such nanotexture can be readily damaged with use, while high surface energy substrates get covered with low surface energy foulants over time. Consequently, even with numerous ephemeral antifog coatings, currently there are no commercially available, durable, and permanent antifog coatings. Here we discuss the development of a new class of high-performance antifog coatings that are abrasion-resistant and long-lasting. These polyvinylpyrrolidone-based coatings, designed based on the classical Ratner-Lancaster wear model, dramatically outperform the base polymer, as well as all tested commercially available antifog coatings. Specifically, these coatings exhibit a > 400% increase in fogging time compared to base polymer, a > 50,000% increase in wear resistance, and excellent long-term antifog performance. The developed coatings also significantly outperformed all tested commercially available antifog coatings in terms of their antifog performance, wear resistance, and long-term cyclical performance. Additionally, the key design strategies employed here─incorporation of toughening agents and hydrophilic slip additives─offer a new approach to developing high-performance, durable antifog coatings based on other well-known antifog polymers.

Smooth, All-Solid, Low-Hysteresis, Omniphobic Surfaces with Enhanced Mechanical Durability.

The utility of omniphobic surfaces stems from their ability to repel a multitude of liquids, possessing a broad range of surface tensions and polarities, by causing them to bead up and either roll or slide off. These surfaces may be self-cleaning, corrosion-resistant, heat-transfer enhancing, stain-resistant or resistant to mineral- or biofouling. The majority of reported omniphobic surfaces use texture, lubricants, and/or grafted monolayers to engender these repellent properties. Unfortunately, these approaches often produce surfaces with deficiencies in long-term stability, durability, scalability, or applicability to a wide range of substrates. To overcome these limitations, we have fabricated an all-solid, substrate-independent, smooth, omniphobic coating composed of a fluorinated polyurethane and fluorodecyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane. Liquids of varying surface tension, including water, hexadecane, ethanol, and silicone oil, exhibit low-contact-angle hysteresis (<15°) on these surfaces, allowing liquid droplets to slide off, leaving no residue. Moreover, we demonstrate that these robust surfaces retained their repellent properties more effectively than textured or lubricated omniphobic surfaces after being subjected to mechanical abrasion.