Two birds with one stone: The route from waste printed circuit board electronic trash to multifunctional biomimetic slippery liquid-infused coating

Abstract

Finding appropriate usage of waste printed circuit board (WPCB), a kind of electronic trash, is an important task from background of environment protection and waste management. Due to the intrinsic high hindrance barrier capability, recycled epoxy resin in rich source from WPCB gives opportunity for corrosion protection of metals based on Two birds with one stone ideology. One stone in this ideology is to apply waste as resource, and two birds respectively indicate using PCB waste as valuable material and inhibiting metal corrosion. In this paper, by combining biomimetics strategy, we adopt a three-step method including anodic oxidation, hydrophobic treatment and infusion of composite containing epoxy resin from WPCB and dimethyl silicone oil to finally form WPCB based slippery liquid-infused porous surface (W-LIS). Morphology, composition, wettability and electrochemical properties are characterized by sophisticated techniques. Adding recycled hydrophobic/oleophilic epoxy resin from WPCB into oil phase can effectively increase the barrier effect and raise anticorrosion ability. Moreover, W-LIS delivers anti-freezing adhesion and biofouling inhibition property, which is obviously superior to LIS and lotus inspired superhydrophobic (SHS) coating. The various excellent performances of W-LIS indicate epoxy resin from waste printed circuit board can act a versatile role in field of metal corrosion prevention.