The ban of perfluorinated ski waxes has been challenging researchers and industrial producers in the last few years and a satisfying universal replacement is currently missing.

In the past year drawbacks of newly developed fluorine-free ski waxes have emerged, limiting their application in specific environments. In particular, dirt repellency arose as a fundamental property of ski waxes, due to the more and more contaminated snow. Additionally, the performance in very humid conditions is still not satisfying.

Taking inspiration from Nature, and specifically from Lotus leaves, in this project we address this issue. Since the extraordinary hydrophobicity and dirt repellency of Lotus leaves comes from a combination of micro and nanostructures at their surface, our innovative approach reproduces this feature exploiting the already microstructured ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) ski base and coupling it with molecular or NPs nano structuring. By exploring different kinds of ski microstructures and decorating them with covalently bound hydrophobic (i.e. siloxane-rich) macromolecules and/or NPs, we aim at reaching the same performance as perfluorinated ski waxes in terms of dirt and water repellency.

Computational simulations will additionally support our experimental work, allowing optimization of the results and assessment of the key molecular features to reach the goal, thus enabling exploration of novel molecular designs.