Scale
formation is a significant problem in a wide range of industries,
including water treatment, food processing, power plants, and oilfield
production. While surface modification provides a promising methodology
to address this challenge, it has generally been believed that surface
coatings with the lowest surface energy, such as fluorocarbon coatings,
are most suitable for antiscaling applications. In contrast to this
general knowledge, here we show that a liquid-like coating featuring
highly mobile linear poly(dimethylsiloxane) (LPDMS) brush chains can
bring an even better antiscaling performance than conventional perfluoroalkylsilane
coatings, despite the fact that the former has much higher surface
energy than the latter. We demonstrate that the LPDMS brush coating
can more effectively inhibit heterogeneous nucleation of scale on
a substrate compared with common perfluoroalkylsilane or alkylsilane
coatings, and the dynamic liquid-like characteristic of the LPDMS
brush coating is speculated to be responsible for its excellent nucleation
inhibiting ability by reducing the affinity and effective interface
interaction between the substrate and the scale nucleus. Our findings
reveal the great prospect of using liquid-like coating to replace
environmentally hazardous fluorine-containing organic ones as a green
and cost-effective solution to address the scale problem with enhanced
antiscaling performance.