Oleophobic interaction mediated slippery organogels with ameliorated mechanical performance and satisfactory fouling-resistance

Owing to their inherent semi-solid property and lubricant ability,organogels manifest various unique characteristics and serve as promising candidates for antifouling.However,the poor mechanical properties of organogels often limit their practical applications.Herein,we report a simple and effective method to prepare organogels with reinforced mechanical performance and surface lubricant ability with the synergistic roles played by oleophobic and oleophilic chains.The rigid oleophobic chains have a poor affinity to lubricating solvent,which gives rise to high oleophobic interactions between polymer networks;the soft oleophilic chains possess a high affinity to the low surface energy solvent,which lead to high solvent content to maintain the satisfactory lubricant capacity.The organogel of oleophobic methyl methacrylate(MMA)and oleophilic lauryl methacrylate(LMA)is chosen as a representative example to illustrate this concept.With the optimal composition,the as-prepared organogels offer satisfactory tensile fracture stress,fracture strain,Young’s modulus,toughness,and tearing fracture energy of 480 k Pa,550%,202 k Pa,1.14 MJ m,and 5.14 k J m,respectively,which are far beyond the classical PLMA organogels.Furthermore,the biofouling resistance tests demonstrate 4 to 9-fold reduction of protein and bacteria adhesion on the reinforced organogels surface in comparison to the glass substrate and solvent-free dry organogels.This simple and effective approach to toughen organogels,we hope,can be applied in various fields with different practical functional requirements in the future.