Inspired by mucus,
which provides an ideal supramolecular model and whose fluid-like
(viscous) and solid-like (elastic) behaviors can be adjusted to meet
different physiological requirements, we report oil-regulated supramolecular
adhesives by the co-assembly of polyurea oligomers and carvacrol oils.
The adhesive is crosslinked by weak but abundant hydrogen bonds, which
can be regulated by the incorporated carvacrol oils through the competition
of intermolecular hydrogen bonds, presenting a unique set of mucus-mimicking
features including oil-regulated mechanics, processability, reusable
adhesivity, and extreme longevity in both air and water. Owing to
the intrinsic bactericidal effect of the carvacrol oils, the developed
adhesives can serve as potent antibacterial coatings with both rapid
contact killing (99.9% killing within 15 min) and long-term controlled
release abilities (up to 70 days), enabling versatile antibacterial
applications in diverse conditions. We envision that these adhesives
will be useful in buildings and architectures, community and public
facilities, food storage and packaging technologies, functional textiles,
and practical biomedical fields.
Polymeric coatings that show tunable mechanical strength,
healing
ability of mechanical damage, and proper liquid repellency will be
promising in various areas across life and industry. However, the
exploitation of such coating materials is largely limited by their
molecular design. In this work, polymeric coatings with ion-controlled
mechanics and coloration and damage-healing and oil-sliding properties
have been demonstrated based on a supramolecular design of dual-cross-linked
polysiloxanes. The coating color and mechanical properties can be
adjusted by coordinative metal ions with various metal-ligand binding
abilities. Dense and dynamic hydrogen bonds and coordination bonds
lead to the ready healing ability and high durability of the coating.
The extreme smoothness of the flat silicone coating facilitates not
only the sliding of impinging oil but also the restoration of topological
integrity from mechanical damage. The coating can be selectively patterned
and applied to large-scale substrates by diverse coating operations,
making it feasible for versatile applications.
Humidity‐based power generation that converts internal energy of water molecules into electricity is an emerging approach for harvesting clean energy from nature. Here it is proposed that intrinsic gradient within a humidity field near sweating surfaces, such as rivers, soil, or animal skin, is a promising power resource when integrated with liquid‐infused nanofluidics. Specifically, capillary‐stabilized ionic liquid (IL, Omim+Cl‐) film is exposed to the above humidity field to create a sustained transmembrane water‐content difference, which enables asymmetric ion‐diffusion across the nanoconfined fluidics, facilitating long‐term electricity generation with the power density of ≈12.11 µW cm‐2. This high record is attributed to the nanoconfined IL that integrates van der Waals and electrostatic interactions to block movement of Omim+ clusters while allowing for directional diffusion of moisture‐liberated Cl+. This humidity gradient triggers large ion‐diffusion flux for power generation indicates great potential of sweating surfaces considering that most of the earth is covered by water or soil.
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