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Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites

Epicuticular wax, the first protective film for numerous ground plant species, is crucial for modulating the evolution in plants. Since the waxy film is inherently thermoresponsive, many efforts focus on engineering materials for water/oil proofing, delivery, and collection, as well as microactuator...

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Autores principales: Kuo, Ching-Te, Chen, Chien-Chin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8467712/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34577951
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13183052
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author Kuo, Ching-Te
Chen, Chien-Chin
author_facet Kuo, Ching-Te
Chen, Chien-Chin
author_sort Kuo, Ching-Te
collection PubMed
description Epicuticular wax, the first protective film for numerous ground plant species, is crucial for modulating the evolution in plants. Since the waxy film is inherently thermoresponsive, many efforts focus on engineering materials for water/oil proofing, delivery, and collection, as well as microactuators by mimicking such film nature. Nonetheless, relatively fewer works address the mechanism of how the underlying substrates direct the reconstruction of waxy films while their temperature approaches the melting point. Here, we presented a strategy in which distinct frameworks of molten wax films could be examined among various substrates. Both “waxphobic” and “waxphilic” traits were first unveiled and could be achieved by the hydrophilic (water contact angle (WCA) = 42~82°) and hydrophobic (WCA = 109°) substrates, respectively. A theoretical model, based on experimental results, fluidic dynamics, and balance of surface energy, was developed to elucidate the above findings. Moreover, we demonstrated the above biomimetic epicuticular surface (BeSurface) can be applied for rewritable paper, erasable coding, and rehealable electronics without manual repairing. Remarkably, the healing time can be reduced down to 30 s, and the cycled folding test can be continued up to 500 times. All the new findings present the potentials of the BeSurface to improve the study of rehealable materials.
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spelling pubmed-84677122021-09-27 Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites Kuo, Ching-Te Chen, Chien-Chin Polymers (Basel) Article Epicuticular wax, the first protective film for numerous ground plant species, is crucial for modulating the evolution in plants. Since the waxy film is inherently thermoresponsive, many efforts focus on engineering materials for water/oil proofing, delivery, and collection, as well as microactuators by mimicking such film nature. Nonetheless, relatively fewer works address the mechanism of how the underlying substrates direct the reconstruction of waxy films while their temperature approaches the melting point. Here, we presented a strategy in which distinct frameworks of molten wax films could be examined among various substrates. Both “waxphobic” and “waxphilic” traits were first unveiled and could be achieved by the hydrophilic (water contact angle (WCA) = 42~82°) and hydrophobic (WCA = 109°) substrates, respectively. A theoretical model, based on experimental results, fluidic dynamics, and balance of surface energy, was developed to elucidate the above findings. Moreover, we demonstrated the above biomimetic epicuticular surface (BeSurface) can be applied for rewritable paper, erasable coding, and rehealable electronics without manual repairing. Remarkably, the healing time can be reduced down to 30 s, and the cycled folding test can be continued up to 500 times. All the new findings present the potentials of the BeSurface to improve the study of rehealable materials. MDPI 2021-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8467712/ /pubmed/34577951 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13183052 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kuo, Ching-Te
Chen, Chien-Chin
Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title_full Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title_fullStr Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title_full_unstemmed Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title_short Biomimetic Wax Interfaces Facilitating Rehealable Polymer Composites
title_sort biomimetic wax interfaces facilitating rehealable polymer composites
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8467712/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34577951
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13183052
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