Electric-tunable wettability on a paraffin-infused slippery pattern surface

Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPs), especially capable of tunable and smart response to the external stimuli, play important roles in the field of intelligent transportation, microreactors, self-cleaning, anti-icing, and beyond. Herein, a novel electric-tunable wettability of paraffin-infused porous colloidal crystal films (PIPCCFs) is presented. Approaches to manipulate the local wettability are proposed by sputtering patterned conductive paths between the PIPCCFs and the glass slide, which can be used as the reversible electro-thermal sources. In addition, smart pathways can be facilely constructed by integrating conductive paths with different shapes to force the droplets transport in fixed orbits. More importantly, with the integration of parallel connection conductive paths, PIPCCFs can individually handle different droplets at the same time. It is demonstrated that electric-tunable wettability on the PIPCCFs could not only supply a quick response to electro-thermal conversion, but also simplify droplets handling in versatile and complex sliding pathways. These features make it a low-cost and high efficiency method for droplets manipulation.