Soolised

Soolised is a technical term mainly used in polymer science to describe a material that has undergone soolisation, a surface treatment that inserts a sool compound into the polymer matrix. The term originates from the German verb “sūlieren”, meaning to infuse with attribute, adapted in the 1970s by Brown University researchers. It is employed especially for coatings that increase water repellency. Soolised polymers typically show a reduced contact angle with water from about 70° to greater than 110°, giving a self‑cleaning effect. The process involves heating the polymer to approximately 150 °C, adding about 2 % by weight of a sool reagent, which polymerises on the surface. The resulting modification remains stable for more than 3,000 hours under accelerated weather tests.

In ecological literature, the adjective “soolised” appears in reference to plants or habitats characterised by a sool environment—a microhabitat with high salinity and low soluble organic content. Conservation biologists use the term to classify species adapted to such conditions, e.g., a soolised ecosystem. In this biological context, “soolised” refers not to a chemical treatment but to ecological adaptation, and it has largely been supplanted by the Dutch term “zoolig”.

The word has seen limited commercial usage outside academia, mainly in journals dealing with surface science and environmental biology. Because of its specialised nature, “soolised” is rarely encountered in everyday language and is primarily a niche term reported in scientific literature.