Enhanced Slippery Behavior and Stability of Lubricating Fluid Infused Nanostructured Surfaces

TL;DR

This study investigates how nanoscale surface roughness enhances the stability and performance of lubricating fluid infused slippery surfaces, with smaller roughness improving durability and ease of restoration.

Contribution

It demonstrates that nanoscale roughness improves the stability and performance of lubricating fluid infused surfaces compared to larger roughness or smooth surfaces.

Findings

Nanoscale roughness improves contact angle hysteresis and slip velocity.

Small roughness samples show slower lubricant loss during water flow.

Lubricant loss can be reversed by re-coating the surface.

Abstract

Stability of lubricating fluid infused slippery surfaces is a concern for scientists and engineers and attempts are being made for its improvement. Lubricating oil coated slippery surface for aqueous drops is one of the important candidates in this class and their stability needs be improved to make them useful for practical applications. Cloaking of water drops with thin lubricant layer results in the loss of lubricant leading to deterioration of slippery behavior. Surface roughness or porosity provides larger surface area to the lubricating fluid and would to affect the stability of the lubricating film. Here we report the effect of surface roughness, from tens of nanometer to few microns, on the stability of slippery surface. Samples with small nanoscale roughness show improved performance in terms of contact angle hysteresis, critical tilt angle and slip velocity. Whereas large roughness samples show poorer performance compared to small nanoscale roughness and smooth samples. Small nanoscale roughness samples also show relatively slower deterioration against loss of lubricant during water flow. Once completely lost, the slippery behavior can be restored again simply by coating the sample again by the lubricating fluid.