Surfaces with Switchable Wettability for Anti-Smudge and Antimicrobial Applications
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The increase in surface disinfectant usage has raised concerns regarding overexposure and environmental contamination, driving a growing interest in developing antimicrobial coatings. For long-lasting antimicrobial performance, coatings should incorporate contact-active, surface-attached biocides and exhibit durability. Surfaces equipped with immobilized biocides eliminate bacteria on contact without releasing harmful agents, addressing the limitations of conventional disinfectants that require frequent reapplication and contribute to environmental pollution. These coatings provide a more sustainable and long-lasting alternative to traditional surface disinfectants. In this work, we explore the synthesis, formulation, and functional properties of inorganic-organic hybrid coatings engineered to deliver dual functionalities: anti-smudge and antimicrobial performance, while achieving high hardness and flexibility. The coatings are based on a photocurable, double-grafted copolymer system, [L-(QAS)], where the graft copolymer AS consists of poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS, S) grafted onto quaternized (Q) poly(dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA, A), which is then grafted onto a ladder-like polysilsesquioxane (ELASQ, L) backbone. Formulated from 2-(3,4-epoxycyclohexyl)ethyltrimethoxysilane, L-based coatings exhibit enhanced hardness combined with flexibility, characteristic of inorganic-organic hybrid materials. The double-grafted copolymer architecture enables controlled surface reconstruction upon exposure to moisture, allowing the coating’s surface properties to adapt in response to environmental conditions. In air, the coatings demonstrate effective anti-smudge properties, attributed to the presence of hydrophobic PDMS chains at the surface. Upon contact with droplets carrying bacterial E. coli cells, the surface undergoes reconstruction, exposing quaternary ammonium groups that disrupt bacterial membranes, providing potent antimicrobial activity. This work comprehensively examines the factors influencing the formulation, smudge resistance, surface reconstruction, and antimicrobial performance of these hybrid coatings, positioning them as promising candidates for durable, multifunctional surface protection in diverse applications.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".