Ice or snow accumulation on surfaces, especially in cold environments, leads to failure of several systems such as wind turbines, power lines, water lines, ships, airplanes and so on. This malfunction can cause economic loss and fatalities. Despite there are some ice removal methods like mechanical scraping, thermal treatments and deicing fluid treatments, these methods are generally expensive and cannot be applied to all systems. To overcome icing problems on surfaces, some anti-icing coating methods that prevent ice accumulation have been developed. Superhydrophobic surfaces were considered as an important candidate for anti-icing coatings due to their high water-repellency properties. However, some studies showed that superhydrophobic surfaces are not always successful at preventing ice formation because they can lose their water repellency properties in high humidity conditions, or they can be damaged during ice nucleation. On the other hand, fouling is an important problem of surfaces. Fouling can be caused by the accumulation of unwanted substances such as dirt, sand, rust, microorganisms, bacteria, proteins, etc. Fouling can cause failure and capacity loss of materials, and if the fouling occurs on the surface of biomaterials (biofouling), it can cause fatal consequences. Recently, pitcher plant inspired slippery coatings with multi-liquid repellency, anti-fouling and anti-icing properties were developed. The main idea of this novel coating is to produce a porous surface that can hold tightly a lubricant, and then obtaining a slippery coating by lubricating this surface. In this work, pitcher plant inspired slippery coatings were developed on glass surface with different coating methods like chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and layer-by-layer assembly, and then they were lubricated with silicone oil or glycerin. These coatings showed very good water repellency, anti-fouling, and anti-icing properties with high durability against raining conditions and heating conditions. These promising slippery coatings have potential to be used in a wide range of applications.
Esra Kasapgil obtained her bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey in 2012 and her master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the same university in 2014. In 2020, she obtained her Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Gebze Technical University in Turkey where she had also worked as a research assistant in 2013-2020. During her PhD studies she focused on coating technologies, polymeric thin films, bio-inspired superhydrophobic surfaces and slippery liquid infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) for self-cleaning and antibiofouling applications. She was a visiting researcher in Biomedical Engineering at McMaster University, Canada in 2019-2020. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Izmir Bakircay University, Turkey. Her research interests are coating technologies, thin film technologies, superhydrophobic coatings, antifouling coatings, surface modification of biomaterials, polymer chemistry, polymer synthesis and characterization, bioinspired materials and technologies.
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