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Reversibly Thermosecreting Organogels with Switchable Lubrication and Anti‐Icing Performance
Author(s) -
Ru Yunfei,
Fang Ruochen,
Gu Zhandong,
Jiang Lei,
Liu Mingjie
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202004122
Subject(s) - materials science , lubrication , upper critical solution temperature , chemical engineering , polymer , adhesive , phase (matter) , self healing hydrogels , adhesion , icing , smart material , nanotechnology , composite material , polymer chemistry , lower critical solution temperature , copolymer , chemistry , organic chemistry , layer (electronics) , oceanography , geology , engineering
Synthetic gels with switchable interfacial properties have great potential in smart devices and controllable transport. Herein, we design an organogel by incorporating a binary liquid mixture with an upper critical solution temperature (UCST) into a polymer network, resulting in reversible modulation of lubrication and adhesion properties. As the temperature changes, the lubricating mechanism changes reversibly from boundary lubrication to hydrodynamic lubrication due to phase separation within the binary solution permeating the gel (friction coefficient 0.4–0.03). Droplets appear on the gel surface at low temperature and disappear with temperature higher than the critical phase separation temperature ( T ps ) of the organogel. The organogel possesses a relatively low ice adhesive strength (less than 1 kPa). This material has potential applications in anti‐icing and smart devices, and we believe that this design strategy can be expanded to other systems such as aqueous solutions and hydrogels.