Thermo-responsive Fluorinated Organogels Showing Anti-fouling and Long-Lasting/Repeatable Icephobic Properties.

Accumulations of ice on modern infrastructures often cause severe consequences. As such, there is significant interest in developing functional coatings/surfaces that can prevent this. One such approach has been demonstrated with slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) and organogels where the ice adhesion strength is reduced to the critical point (less than 10 kPa) where it can be removed by natural forces such as gravity, wind, vibrations, and so forth However, both designs are limited by lubricant depletion.

Ice-Shedding Polymer Coatings with High Hardness but Low Ice Adhesion.

Ice readily sheds from weak oil-swollen polymer gels but tends to adhere to mechanically robust coatings. This paper reports bilayer coatings that simultaneously possess high bulk hardness but low ice adhesion. These coatings are prepared by cocuring a triisocyanate, P#'--PDMS [a methacrylate polyol bearing poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) side chains with # being 1, 2, or 3 and denoting ], and optionally a methacrylate polyol P#.

Effect of Counterions on the Self-Assembly of Polystyrene-Polyphosphonium Block Copolymers.

The ability to manipulate block copolymers on the nanoscale has led to many scientific and technological advances. These include nanoscale ordered bulk and thin films and also solution phase components; these are promising materials for making smaller ordered electronics, selective membranes, and also biomedical applications. The ability to manipulate block copolymer material architectures on such small scales has risen from thorough investigations into the properties that affect the architectures.

Boron Difluoride Adducts of a Flexidentate Pyridine-Substituted Formazanate Ligand: Property Modulation via Protonation and Coordination Chemistry.

The synthesis and characterization of a flexidentate pyridine-substituted formazanate ligand and its boron difluoride adducts, formed via two different coordination modes of the title ligand, are described. The first adduct adopted a structure that was typical of other boron difluoride adducts of triarylformazanate ligands and contained a free pyridine subsituent, while the second was formed via the chelation of nitrogen atoms from the formazanate backbone and the pyridine substituent. Stepwise protonation of the pydridine-functionalized adduct, which is essentially nonemissive, resulted in a significant increase in the fluorescence quantum yield up to a maximum of 18%, prompting the study of this adduct as a pH sensor.