A general and facile chemical avenue for the controlled and extreme regulation of water wettability in air and oil wettability under water† †Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: A detailed experimental section is included in the ESI section and Fig. S1–S7 show a comparison of the growth of NC and change in the dipping solution which is a BPEI/5Acl mixture, post chemical functionalization of multilayers that are developed in the presence and absence of salt, SEM images of multilayers of NC and polymer, bouncing and rolling of oil/water, effect of chemical modification on liquid wettability, characterization of special adhesive-anti-fouling liquid (oil/water) wettability, and effect of various abrasive tests on the synthesized material. See DOI: 10.1039/c7sc02296d Click here for additional data file.

Materials: Dipentaerythitol penta-acrylate (5Acl), branched polyethyleneimine (BPEI, MW~ 25000), propylamine, hexylamine, octylamine, decylamine, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and Nile red (Technical grade, Sigma-N3013) were aquired from Sigma Aldrich, Bangalore, India. . n-butylamine was bought from Spectrochem Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, India. HCl and Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were obtained from Fischer Scientific, Mumbai, India. 1-pentylamine, heptylamine, and 1-octadecylamine were purchased from AlfaAesar and ethyl alcohol was purchased from TEDIA Company (United States of America). THF was obtained from RANKEM, Maharashtra, India. Sand paper (grit no. 400) was acquired from Million International, India. Microscopic glass slides were obtained from JSGW (Jain Scientific Glass Works, India), aluminium foil (Parekh Aluminex Ltd., India), and adhesive tape (Jonson tape Ltd. India) were obtained from local sources. Dichloromethane (DCM) and methanol was acquired from Merck Life Science Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India. D-glucamine (>95%) was purchased from TCI (Tokyo Chemical Industry). Sand and wood was collected from a construction site at IIT-Guwahati, Assam.