A Bioinspired Antifouling Coating Based on "Host-Guest Interaction" Strategy: Durable Slipperiness and Tunable Transparency

Lubricant-mediated surfaces limit their practical application in transparent antifouling due to the inherent drawbacks of lubricant loss and poor transparency. Liquid-Like Surfaces(LLSs)are expected to solve these problems. Herein, inspired by the skin structure of globefish, some slippery LLSs are prepared with the cyclodextrin-eugenol inclusion complexes as the poison glands and flexible silicone chains as the liquid-like layer. LLSs kill attached organisms by slowly secreting environmentally friendly eugenol through poison glands. Short-term explosive release of the drug is avoided owing to host-guest interactions. In addition, due to low surface energy, the covalently linked flexible silicone chains spontaneously migrate to the surface of the coating, effectively preventing the adhesion of fouling and improving the durability of slippery surfaces, achieving both offense and defense. LLSs exhibit outstanding antifouling, mechanical, and adhesive performance. Interestingly, the transparency of LLSs in seawater and freshwater is quite different. This different behavior is attributed to ion-dipole interactions weakening the hydrogen bonding of water molecules to the polymer network, which provides some insights into tuning the transparency responsiveness of polymers. Furthermore, LLSs-coated lenses achieve a long-lasting transparent application in seawater for 90 days, providing a promising approach for surface antifouling of lenses in marine environments.