Materials Chemistry Research Centre, Department of Chemistry , University College London , 20 Gordon Street , London , WC1H 0AJ , United Kingdom.
Department of Microbial Diseases, UCL Eastman Dental Institute , University College London , 256 Gray's Inn Road , London WC1X 8LD , United Kingdom.
ACS Nano. 2018 Jun 26;12(6):6050-6058. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.8b02293. Epub 2018 Jun 12.
Superhydrophobic surfaces are present in nature on the leaves of many plant species. Water rolls on these surfaces, and the rolling motion picks up particles including bacteria and viruses. Man-made superhydrophobic surfaces have been made in an effort to reduce biofouling. We show here that the anti-biofouling property of a superhydrophobic surface is due to an entrapped air-bubble layer that reduces contact between the bacteria and the surface. Further, we showed that prolonged immersion of superhydrophobic surfaces in water led to loss of the bubble-layer and subsequent bacterial adhesion that unexpectedly exceeded that of the control materials. This behavior was not restricted to one particular type of material but was evident on different types of superhydrophobic surfaces. This work is important in that it suggests that superhydrophobic surfaces may actually encourage bacterial adhesion during longer term exposure.
超疏水表面存在于许多植物物种的叶子上。水在这些表面上滚动，滚动运动会带走包括细菌和病毒在内的颗粒。人们制造了超疏水表面，以努力减少生物污垢。我们在这里表明，超疏水表面的抗生物污垢特性是由于存在一层被困的气泡层，从而减少了细菌与表面的接触。此外，我们还表明，超疏水表面长时间浸入水中会导致气泡层丢失，随后细菌的附着出乎意料地超过了对照材料。这种行为不仅限于一种特定类型的材料，而且在不同类型的超疏水表面上都很明显。这项工作很重要，因为它表明，在较长时间的暴露下，超疏水表面实际上可能会促进细菌的附着。
