Bioinspired Surfaces and Templated Patterning for Tunable Wetting and Sensing

Bioinspired examples in nature have been used to design and control wetting behavior. Superhydrophobic, superoleophobic, and omniphobic surfaces have many applications. It is a question of how robust they are against fouling. Different separation and membrane filtration methods can exploit this phenomenon by cleaning up emulsions or enriching proteins. Applications in coatings are vital for non-fouling and anti-corrosion properties. We have demonstrated in several ways that superhydrophobic surfaces - a play with the Cassie-Baxter and Wenzel wetting approaches can be prepared to have high-performance properties. Templating, polymer brushes, electropolymerization, and 3D printing affords superhydrophobic and superoleophilic properties. The following examples are described in this talk: 1) Super switchable bio-inspired lotus leaf surfaces with polymer brushes, 2) 3D printed and stereolithographic featured mapping of hierarchical non-wettable surfaces, and 3) nano colloidal assembly of compositional surface and enzyme-receptor inspired thin films These films have many qualities and applications in anti-corrosion, anti-bacterial, separations, filtrations, anti-icing and electrochromic properties. There is a path towards predicting these properties and optimized fabrication and characterization with AI/ML approaches.