Grass-to-Stone Surface Inspired Long-Term Inhibiting Scaling for Desalination

Bionic self-cleaning coatings anti-scaling have exhibited scaling inhibition for their low surface free energy. The key issue focus on their long-term anti-scaling property. Inspired by “grass-to-stone” phenomenon, we reported a polymer coating and found that the WCA of its 720 h-scaled surface increased from 120°to 135°with scaling reduced by 90-95%. A physical model of self-healing film interface inhibiting scaling is innovatively proposed. “Nano-grass” like low surface tension molecules with -C-Si groups self-migrate onto CaCO 3 crystals surfaces and form a “micro-leaf” like self-healing film for self-cleaning surface reconstruction, as an important step toward designing long-term anti-scaling coating for desalination engineering application