Design of Abrasion-Resistant, Long-Lasting Antifog Coatings.

Fog formation is a common challenge for numerous applications, such as food packaging, mirrors, building windows, and freezer/refrigerator doors. Most notably, fog forms on the inner surfaces of prescription glasses and safety eyewear (particularly when used with a mask), face shields, and helmet lenses. Fogging is caused by the distortion of light from condensed water droplets present on a surface and can typically be prevented if the surface static water contact angle (θ) is less than ∼40°. Such a low contact angle can be readily achieved by either increasing the substrate surface energy or by engineering surface nanotexture. Unfortunately, such nanotexture can be readily damaged with use, while high surface energy substrates get covered with low surface energy foulants over time. Consequently, even with numerous ephemeral antifog coatings, currently there are no commercially available, durable, and permanent antifog coatings. Here we discuss the development of a new class of high-performance antifog coatings that are abrasion-resistant and long-lasting. These polyvinylpyrrolidone-based coatings, designed based on the classical Ratner-Lancaster wear model, dramatically outperform the base polymer, as well as all tested commercially available antifog coatings. Specifically, these coatings exhibit a > 400% increase in fogging time compared to base polymer, a > 50,000% increase in wear resistance, and excellent long-term antifog performance. The developed coatings also significantly outperformed all tested commercially available antifog coatings in terms of their antifog performance, wear resistance, and long-term cyclical performance. Additionally, the key design strategies employed here─incorporation of toughening agents and hydrophilic slip additives─offer a new approach to developing high-performance, durable antifog coatings based on other well-known antifog polymers.

Image-based single-cell sorting via dual-photopolymerized microwell arrays.

We present a simple and cost-effective single-cell sorting method using two sequential photopolymerization steps that enables sorting based upon imaged phenotypes. The first photopolymerization step uses a thiolene-based resin with minimal autofluorescence to create an array of microwells to capture cells. The second photopolymerization uses (poly)ethylene glycol diacrylate to encapsulate undesired cells in a hydrogel, allowing for retrieval of the desired cell population using simple washing. We quantitatively characterize the method using fluorescently labeled cells and then applied the method to isolate cells based upon imaged fluorescence localization. The method is readily transferrable to other laboratories and will provide a facile route to sorting of cells based on imaged phenotypes.