Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Mar 24;13(11):13735-13743. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c02273. Epub 2021 Mar 12.
Traditional antifouling coatings are generally based on a single antifouling mechanism, which can hardly meet the needs of different occasions. Here, a single "kill-resist-renew trinity" polymeric coating integrating fouling killing, resistance, and releasing functions is reported. To achieve the design, a novel monomer-tertiary carboxybetaine ester acrylate with the antifouling group -(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)maleimide (TCB-TCPM) is synthesized and copolymerized with methacrylic anhydride via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization yielding a degradable hyperbranched polymer. Such a polymer at the surface/seawater is able to hydrolyze and degrade to short segments forming a dynamic surface (releasing). The hydrolysis of TCB-TCPM generates the antifouling groups TCPM (killing) and zwitterionic groups (resistance). Such a polymeric coating exhibits a controllable degradation rate, which increases with the degrees of branching. The antibacterial assay demonstrates that the antifouling ability arise from the synergistic effect of "attacking" and "defending". This study provides a new strategy to solve the challenging problem of marine biofouling.
传统的防污涂料通常基于单一的防污机制，很难满足不同场合的需求。在这里，报道了一种集成了杀污、抗污和释放功能的单一“杀-抗-复三位一体”聚合物涂层。为了实现这一设计，合成了一种带有防污基团-(2,4,6-三氯苯基)马来酰亚胺（TCB-TCPM）的新型单体-叔羧基甜菜碱酯丙烯酸酯，并通过可逆加成-断裂链转移聚合与甲基丙烯酸酐共聚，得到可降解的超支化聚合物。这种聚合物在表面/海水中能够水解和降解成短链段，形成动态表面（释放）。TCB-TCPM 的水解生成防污基团 TCPM（杀菌）和两性离子基团（抗污）。这种聚合物涂层具有可控的降解速率，其随着支化度的增加而增加。抗菌试验表明，防污能力源于“攻击”和“防御”的协同作用。本研究为解决海洋生物污损这一具有挑战性的问题提供了一种新策略。
