A Wetting-Enabled-Transfer (WET) Strategy for Precise Surface Patterning of Organohydrogels.

Abstract

The ability to manipulate water and oil phases in a designable manner is of great significance in widespread fields from art paintings to materials science. However, achieving precise and stable surface patterns for two immiscible phases of water and oil remains a challenge. Herein, a general wetting-enabled-transfer (WET) strategy is reported to construct discretionary shape-defined surface patterns of organohydrogels along with their monolithic formation either from flat to curved surfaces or from the microscale to the macroscale. Locally differentiated wettability induces hydrophilic monomers and hydrophobic monomers from an emulsion system onto the wettability-matching regions of the prepatterned substrates, subsequently forming corresponding hydrogel and organogel patterns on the organohydrogel surface after in situ photopolymerization. The precision of the surface patterns can be controlled by optimizing the gel monomers, emulsion droplet size, and surface chemical composition of the prepatterned substrates. This finding may provide a feasible strategy for precisely patterning functional materials from two-immiscible-phase systems.