Can't touch this: Highly omniphobic coatings based on self-textured C6-fluoroponytailed polyvinylimidazolium monoliths

• C6-Fluoroponytailed vinylimidazolium based late stage intermediate monomers. Single crystal X-ray structure determination of fluoroalkylated surfactants. Self-organization to Lotus-like nano-scalar monolithic structures. Straightforward access highly omniphobic surface coatings for silica substrates. The quaternization 1-vinylimidazole with 1 H ,1 ,2 -perfluorooctyl iodide, followed by anion metathesis reactions, allowed the synthetic novel polymerizable fluorosurfactant salts excellent yields, scalable from multigram up bulk quantities on kg scale. Subsequently, a series doubly fluoroponytailed monomers as well bridged bis-vinylimidazolium cross-linkers have been prepared via expedient thionation / S -alkylation. Thus, resulting pool these intermediates offers great potential in task-specific tuning. Through polymerization appropriate porogen mixtures combined micellar self-aggregation perfluoroalkyl moieties along synergistic ionic interactions fluorosurfactants, formation structures is induced evidenced SEM imaging. According contact angle measurements, lotus-like textures hereby created drastically enhance oil and water repellency polymer surface. Heeding well-established cooperative concepts chemical functionalization, accompanied physical roughness, represents proven strategy impart high omniphobicity. However, applicative maturity systems nanophysics frequently restricted tedious intricate patterning techniques environmental constraints surface-active fluoroorganic compounds, which high-performance indispensably rely.