Slippery Antifouling Polymer Coatings Fabricated Entirely from Biodegradable and Biocompatible Components

We report on the design of slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) fabricated entirely from building blocks that are biodegradable, edible, or generally regarded to be biocompatible. Our approach involves infusion of lubricating oils, including food oils, into nanofiber-based mats fabricated by electrospinning or blow spinning of poly(ε-caprolactone), a hydrophobic biodegradable polymer used widely in medical implants and drug delivery devices. This approach leads to durable and biodegradable SLIPS that prevent fouling by liquids and other materials, including microbial pathogens, on objects of arbitrary shape, size, and topography. This degradable polymer approach also provides practical means to design ‘controlled release’ SLIPS that release molecular cargo at rates that can be manipulated by the properties of the infused oils (e.g., viscosity or chemical structure). Together, our results provide new designs and introduce useful properties and behaviors to anti-fouling SLIPS, address important issues related to biocompatibility and environmental persistence, and thus advance new potential applications, including the use of slippery materials for food packaging, industrial and marine coatings, and biomedical implants.