Liquid repellency enabled antipathogen coatings

Currently, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) – a respiratory contagion spreading through expiratory droplets – has evolved into a global pandemic, severely impacting the public health. Importantly, the emerging of immune evasion SARS-CoV-2 variants and the limited effect of current antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 in clinical trials suggested that alternative strategies in addition to the conventional vaccines and antivirals is required to successfully control the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we propose to use liquid-repellent coatings to prevent the spread of disease in the absence of effective vaccines, anti-microbial agents or therapeutics, wherein the deposition and penetration of pathogen droplets are prohibited. We use SARS-CoV-2 as a model pathogen and find that SARS-CoV-2 remnants are reduced by seven orders of magnitude on coated surfaces, yielding a repelling efficacy far outperforming the inactivation rate of disinfectants. The SARS-CoV-2 remnant scales exponentially with the liquid/solid adhesion, uncovering the mechanism and effective means for minimizing pathogen attachment. The anti-pathogen coating that both repels and inactivates pathogens is demonstrated by incorporating the super-liquid-repellent coating with anti-pathogen additives. Together with its versatility over a wide range of substrates and pathogens, the novel anti-pathogen coating is of considerable value for infection control in everyday life as well as during pandemics.
Graphical abstract Image 1