Superdurable Coating Fabricated from a Double‐Sided Tape with Long Term “Zero” Bacterial Adhesion

Source abstract

There is no coating technology currently available to prevent the notorious biofilm formation issue. Here, a potential solution to fully address this tough issue is reported by developing a super‐antifouling coating. The use of zwitterionic hydrogel (a double‐sided tape) and commercial superglue is combined and a durable and ultrarobust antifouling zwitterionic (DURA‐Z) coating is created that can be easily and universally applied on common substrates. Commercial superglue mostly for binding hydrophobic materials is used to strongly immobilize the superhydrophilic DURA‐Z coating through interpenetration. DURA‐Z coating effectively solves several key challenges preventing the current antifouling coatings from practical use, including difficult fabrication, low efficacy, poor toughness, and durability. The fabricated DURA‐Z coating retains antifouling property after 90 d of immersion in water, 50 d of buffer shearing, and 30 d of water flushing, and after repeated knife scratch and sandpaper abrasion under 570 kPa. The DURA‐Z coating achieves a rarely reported long‐term biofilm resistance to both Gram‐positive and Gram‐negative bacteria and fungi: it remains almost “zero” microbe adhesion after continuously challenged by more than 10 9 cells mL −1 culture medium for 30 d.