Porous polydimethylsiloxane films with specific surface wettability but distinct regular physical structures fabricated by 3D printing

Zhoukun He; Na Wang; Linpeng Mu; Zhuo Wang; Jie Su; Yikun Chen; Mingdong Luo; Ya Wu; Xiaorong Lan; Jiayan Mao

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1272565

Porous polydimethylsiloxane films with specific surface wettability but distinct regular physical structures fabricated by 3D printing

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Sep 21:11:1272565. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1272565. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhoukun He^{1

2}, Na Wang^{1

2}, Linpeng Mu^{1

2}, Zhuo Wang^{1

2}, Jie Su^{1

2}, Yikun Chen^{1

2}, Mingdong Luo^{3

4}, Ya Wu^{5

6}, Xiaorong Lan^{3

4}, Jiayan Mao^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu, China.
² Institute for Advanced Study, Research Center of Composites and Surface and Interface Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu, China.
³ Luzhou Key Laboratory of Oral and Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Regeneration, The Affiliated Stomatological Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
⁴ Institute of Stomatology, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Vascular Surgery, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
⁶ Metabolic Vascular Disease Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
⁷ Department of Nephrology, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁸ Chinese Academy of Sciences Sichuan Translational Medicine Research Hospital, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

Porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films with special surface wettability have potential applications in the biomedical, environmental, and structural mechanical fields. However, preparing porous PDMS films with a regular surface pattern using conventional methods, such as chemical foaming or physical pore formation, is challenging. In this study, porous PDMS films with a regular surface pattern are designed and prepared using 3D printing to ensure the formation of controllable and regular physical structures. First, the effect of the surface wettability of glass substrates with different surface energies (commercial hydrophilic glass and hydrophobic glass (F-glass) obtained by treating regular glass with 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl-trichlorosilane) on the structural characteristics of the 3D printed PDMS filaments is investigated systematically. Additionally, the effect of the printing speed and the surface wettability of the glass substrate on the PDMS filament morphology is investigated synchronously. Next, using the F-glass substrate and an optimized printing speed, the effects of the number of printed layers on both the morphologies of the individual PDMS filaments and porous PDMS films, and the surface wettability of the films are studied. This study reveals that regularly patterned porous PDMS films with distinct structural designs but the same controllable surface wettability, such as anisotropic surface wettability and superhydrophobicity, can be easily fabricated through 3D printing. This study provides a new method for fabricating porous PDMS films with a specific surface wettability, which can potentially expand the application of porous PDMS films.

Keywords: 3D printing; PDMS; anisotropic; superhydrophobic; surface wettability.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Key Research and Development Programs of Sichuan Province (Nos 2022YFS0634 and 2022YFS0612), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos 51873240 and 82200432), the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province of China (No. 2022NSFSC1448), the Key Research and Development Programs of Luzhou (No. 2022-GYF-12), the Talent Introduction Program of The Affiliated Stomatological Hospital of Southwest Medical University (No. 2022BS02), Innovative leading talents program of The Affiliated Stomatological Hospital of Southwest Medical University (No. 2022LJ02), and the Key Laboratory of Medical Electrophysiology (Southwest Medical University) (No. KeyME-2022-06).