Oberfl?chenzauber – The Magic of Surfaces

On the 16th of April 2024, the SuSoS team had the opportunity to present its work and its research activities to some possible future scientist.?

Indeed, Tobias Komsthoeft, Alexandros Atzemoglou and Samuele Tosatti presented to two classes of the Primary School Birchlen in Dübendorf (class 3A of Mr. Kellner and class 5B of Ms. Stanic) some examples of coatings as well as the research activities currently going on at SuSoS.

To warm up the stage, what could have been more appropriate than a live-demo of the? “magic” properties of self-cleaning Lotus-Leaf surfaces and of the sticky properties of burdock seeds as well as their technical translation in ultra-hydrophobic coating and Velcro? fasteners, respectively. Two surfaces used in everyday life of young and less young people.

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After this introduction a more practical part started. There, with the help of some hands-on experiments the kids could find answers to some strange questions:

-????????????? How slippery is slippery?

-????????????? Can you collect water with a sieve?

-????????????? Can a boat full of micro-holes swim?

-????????????? Can you move a droplet over a grit????????

The currently on-going research projects at SuSoS were presented and discussed with the class(es):

-?????????????SURFICE - MSC-ITN: Alexandros showed some visual examples where the formation and adhesion of ice represent a technical problem on airplanes, as well as on household surfaces such as fridges and freezers. Further he explained the objectives of the SurfICE project to reduce bad effects that ice-formation has on surfaces.

-????????????? DIRNANO MSCA-ITN: Tobias explained in a very simple manner two very important concepts of his project: nanoparticles and specific binding. The level of interaction and the questions raised by the kids were of such a high level that they could have very well been raised during an academic exam!

-????????????? Triple-A-COAT: Finally, Samuele presented the properties of natural materials, such as nano-cellulose, and described possible use of this innovative material in the surface coating community, in particular, when combined with anti-microbial species, like the researchers of Triple-A are working on.

A big thank to the kids and the teachers for their curiosity, interest and the very challenging questions, that gave lab-scientist the possibility to get different insights and inputs allowing better interfacing of surface science with everyday aspects of life!

Thanks to NTN Innovative Surfaces for the inspiration and support!

For further information, supporting materials and similar, do not hesitate to contact Samuele Tosatti at [email protected] or visit www.susos.com

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