Novel coating that repels just about anything receives R&D 100 Award

A novel coating that repels almost every type of liquid and solid, from blood and crude oil, to ice and bacteria, has received a 2012 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine.

The annual awards honor the 100 most technologically significant products of the previous year. The winning technology, called SLIPS (Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces), was developed by a team of scientists led by Joanna Aizenberg, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

“Some of the most extreme examples in biology can provide the most amazing and unexpected ideas, and what’s so significant about the pitcher plant is that it gives us a blueprint for a single surface that is capable of repelling any type of accumulated unwanted material,” said Aizenberg, who is also the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and co-director of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology.