Interaction of Blood and Bacteria with Slippery Hydrophilic Surfaces

Abstract

Slippery surfaces (i.e., surfaces that display high liquid droplet mobility) are receiving significant attention due to their biofluidic applications. Non-textured, all-solid, slippery hydrophilic (SLIC) surfaces are an emerging class of rare and counter-intuitive surfaces. In this work, the interactions of blood and bacteria with SLIC surfaces are investigated. The SLIC surfaces demonstrate significantly lower platelet and leukocyte adhesion (≈97.2% decrease in surface coverage), and correspondingly low platelet activation, as well as significantly lower bacterial adhesion (≈99.7% decrease in surface coverage of live Escherichia Coli and ≈99.6% decrease in surface coverage of live Staphylococcus Aureus) and proliferation compared to untreated silicon substrates, indicating their potential for practical biomedical applications. The study envisions that the SLIC surfaces will pave the path to improved biomedical devices with favorable blood and bacteria interactions.