Biobased Cationically Photocurable Coatings with Omniphobicity and Their Applications

In this work, a biobased cationically photocurable omniphobic coating system was effectively developed via a facile strategy by using epoxidized soybean oil as a biomass coating precursor, tetrakis [(epoxycyclohexyl) ethyl] tetramethylcyclotetrasiloxane as an effective cross-linking agent, and polydimethylsiloxane as an omniphobic agent to provide coatings with low surface energy. Due to the rational design of this coating system, no extrinsic organic solvent was added, and 20 s ultraviolet radiation was sufficient for coating curing. The as-prepared omniphobic coatings were highly optically transparent and mechanically robust, and they also possessed exceptional liquid repellency and chemical shielding durability against various contaminants and corrosive agents. Besides, these coatings exhibited remarkable self-cleaning performance and also could be appropriately used for anti-ink, antigraffiti, and antifingerprint purposes. In addition, they could be applied for fabricating functional noctilucent coatings and bestowed them with an omniphobic property. More strikingly, this coating system could be cured via sunlight exposure without compromising the omniphobic property, enabling these coatings to be availably applicable for various substrates, including the thermosensitive ones. Therefore, the features of facile preparation, short curing duration, and optional curing strategy, in addition to above versatile functions, make these biobased omniphobic coatings tremendously promising for practical applications.