HARVARD UNIVERSITY, USA. A technology that makes wiping surfaces to keep them clean a thing of the past.
SLIPS stands for Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surface. The following properties can be found in SLIPS technology:
- Liquid repellency
- Self-healing and anti-coagulant
- Optical Transparency
- Pressure stability
- Ant-fogging and anti-icing
- Self-cleaning with a low density cleaning liquid (like ethanol)
These remarkable properties make it an ideal technology for use in buildings, aircraft and refrigerators; windshields and mirrors; lenses and medical devices; solar panels; and a whole lot more.
The concept was derived from a pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant, where its cupped leaf is actually a frictionless surface allowing its prey to slide down into its doom. The pitcher plant locks in a layer of water in its surface and serves as the repellent surface. In SLIPS, a slippery surface coating is made by infusing a nano-structured porous material with lubricating fluid, thus the name.
“Not only is our bio-inspired surface able to work in a variety of conditions, but it is also simple and cheap to manufacture,” says Sung Hoon Kang, a Ph.D. who co-authored the technological breakthrough. SLIPS is designed to outperform its counterparts in a broad range of its uses.
| Invention | A liquid-repellent surface technology |
|---|---|
| Organization | Harvard University |
| Researchers | Aizenberg, Joanna, Tak-Sing Wong, Sung Hoon Kang, Sindy Tang, Benjamin Hatton, Alison Grinthal, Elizabeth Smythe |
| Field(s) | Mechanical Engineering, Medical Devices, Nanotechnology, SLIPS technology, Nanostructures |
| Further Information | Harvard Gazette, Harvard Tech Transfer |
