MIT Spinout LiquiGlide Licenses its Nonstick Coating to Major Consumer-Goods Company

MIT’s Kripa Varanasi and David Smith developed a liquid-impregnated coating known as LiquiGlide that serves as a slippery barrier between a viscous liquid and a surface in 2009. The coating technology has now after 6 years been licensed to a major consumer-goods company.

Since the invention of the condiment, and the glass bottles that hold them, large amounts of them and other products have been wasted as they stick to the sides of bottles. However, the use of the new coating allows substances to slide off completely without any remains.

For instance, when applied within a condiment bottle, the coating sticks permanently to the sides enabling easy flow of condiments without sticking. Following the presentation of LiquiGlide in MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, Smith and Varanasi attempted to commercialize the coating by starting a company with support from the Institute in 2012.

The coating has been licensed to Norwegian consumer-goods producer Orkla for use in their mayonnaise products in Germany, Scandinavia, and several other European nations. Furthermore, Elmer’s announced a licensing deal with LiquiGlide in March.

Varanasi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who is now on LiquiGlide’s board of directors and chief science advisor, said this is just the beginning. The startup which is new to the consumer-goods market is signing deals with a number of manufacturers in food, beauty care and household product sectors.

Our coatings can work with a whole range of products, because we can tailor each coating to meet the specific requirements of each application.

Kripa Varanasi
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT

Other than providing benefits like convenience and savings, LiquiGlide helps in minimizing the products being wasted, particularly food, that adheres to the container sides and gets thrown away. For example, in 2009, Consumer Reports claimed up to 15% of bottled condiments get tossed. Varanasi said that keeping bottles clean could enormously reduce the use of energy and water in addition to the costs associated in cleaning the bottles prior to recycling. “It has huge potential in terms of critical sustainability,” he said.

The company is now focusing on solving the buildup in oil and gas pipelines, which could lead to clogs that affect flow and result in corrosion. He added that future applications could involve coating in airplane wings, deicing roofs and medical devices such as catheters, and improving manufacturing and process efficiency. “Interfaces are ubiquitous. We want to be everywhere,” he said.

Learn the science behind LiquiGlide's permanently wet coating and see it in action
Video credit:Melanie Gonick / MIT

LiquiGlide was actually developed when Smith was working on his graduate research in Varanasi’s research group. Smith and Varanasi were originally interested in providing a solution that prevents ice buildup on airplane surfaces and methane hydrate buildup in oil and gas pipelines.

During the initial research, the researchers employed superhydrophobic surfaces that trap air pockets and naturally repel water. However, they later found that these surfaces are incapable of shedding every bit of liquid. When vapor is converted into liquid during phase transitions, for instance, water droplets condense and accumulate in microscopic gaps on surfaces, causing loss of anti-icing properties of the surface. Varanasi said, “Something that is nonwetting to macroscopic drops does not remain nonwetting for microscopic drops.”

Based on the findings of researcher David Quéré, of ESPCI in Paris on slippery "hemisolid-hemiliquid" surfaces, Varanasi and Smith discovered permanently wet "liquid-impregnated surfaces" — coatings without microscopic gaps. The coatings include textured solid material, which traps a liquid lubricant via capillary and intermolecular forces. The coating wicks via the textured solid surface by permanently sticking below the product, allowing the product to glide off the surface easily. Other materials are prevented from entering the gaps or displacing the coating. “One can say that it’s a self-lubricating surface,” Varanasi said.

Mixing and matching the materials is a complex process. Liquid components of the coating need to be immiscible and compatible with the chemical and physical properties of the sticky product. Any solid material must form a textured structure while sticking to the container. At the same time, the coating should be safe for the contents. For instance, foodstuffs may require safe, edible materials like plants and insoluble fibers.

In order to make selection of ingredients better, Smith and Varanasi created the basic scientific principles and algorithms for analyzing the interaction of the liquid and solid coating materials, the product and the geometry of the surface structures to produce the optimal “recipe.”

Now, LiquiGlide produces coatings for clients and licenses their recipes. They also create instructions describing the materials, equipment, and process required for producing and applying the coating for different applications. “The state of the coating we end up with depends entirely on the properties of the product you want to slide over the surface,” said Smith, now LiquiGlide’s CEO.

Following the research of a number of viscous liquids over the years, right from peanut butter to crude oil to blood, LiquiGlide holds a database of optimal ingredients for use in its algorithms while customizing recipes. “Given any new product you want LiquiGlide for, we can zero in on a solution that meets all requirements necessary,” Varanasi said.

Smith and Varanasi have investigated various commercial applications for LiquiGlide, for years together. However, in 2012, LiquiGlide was made commercially successful with support from MIT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The actual idea was to develop coatings in the oil and gas industry. However, this solution came up when, in early 2012, Varanasi found his wife struggling to pour honey from the container. “And I thought, ‘We have a solution for that,'" Varanasi said.

Then the researchers focused on consumer packaging. Smith and Varanasi manipulated this idea via various entrepreneurship classes including 6.933 (Entrepreneurship in Engineering: The Founder’s Journey) — and MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and Innovation Teams, where student teams research the commercial potential of MIT technologies.

“I did pretty much every last thing you could do. Because we have such a brilliant network here at MIT, I thought I should take advantage of it,” Smith said.

Smith, Varanasi, and several MIT students participated in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, winning the Audience Choice Award — and the national spotlight. In addition, a video of ketchup sliding out of a LiquiGlide-coated bottle gained popularity. Several media outlets covered the story following which different companies approached Varanasi for the coating. “My phone didn’t stop ringing, my website crashed for a month. It just went crazy,” Varanasi said.

With their startup idea, Smith and Varanasi approached MIT’s Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator program that summer, which took them to a local investor network and enabled them setup a solid business plan. Immediately after that, they raised funds through friends, family and MassChallenge Entrepreneurship Competition where they won $100,000.

When LiquiGlide Inc. was opened in August 2012, clients were already waiting at their doorsteps. They chose a select number to contribute for the development and testing of the coating for its products. In less than a year, LiquiGlide was cash-flow positive, and saw a growth of three to 18 employees in its present Cambridge headquarters.

Varanasi believes that a major portion of LiquiGlide’s success is a contribution from MIT’s innovation-based ecosystem that promotes rapid prototyping for the marketplace via experimentation and collaboration. The ecosystem includes the Technology Licensing Office, the Venture Mentoring Service, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and other initiatives. “Having a lab where we could think about … translating the technology to real-world applications, and having this ability to meet people, and bounce ideas … that whole MIT ecosystem was key,” Varanasi said.