Abstract
Aquaculture is a billion dollar industry and biofouling of aquaculture installations has heavy economic penalties. The natural antifouling (AF) defence mechanism of some seaweed that inhibits biofouling by production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) inspired us to mimic this process by fabricating ZnO photocatalytic nanocoating. AF activity of fishing nets modified with ZnO nanocoating was compared with uncoated nets (control) and nets painted with copper-based AF paint. One month experiment in tropical waters showed that nanocoatings reduce abundances of microfouling organisms by 3-fold compared to the control and had higher antifouling performance over AF paint. Metagenomic analysis of prokaryotic and eukaryotic fouling organisms using next generation sequencing platform proved that nanocoatings compared to AF paint were not selectively enriching communities with the resistant and pathogenic species. The proposed bio-inspired nanocoating is an important contribution towards environmentally friendly AF technologies for aquaculture.
Highlights
Biofouling in aquaculture industry is a complex and recurrent global problem[1]
Raman spectroscopy illustrated the prominent Nylon 6 features of unmodified net. These features were diminished for the painted net, suggesting a uniform thick coating, while for the ZnO nanorod coated net they were present alongside specific zinc oxide peaks, suggesting intermittent surface coverage (Fig. 1D)
Our results showed that the highest number of unique operational taxonomic units were observed in the biofilms formed on the painted surfaces, while the lowest number of OTUs were observed in samples obtained from the nanocoated surfaces (Supplementary Table 1)
Summary
Biofouling in aquaculture industry is a complex and recurrent global problem[1]. A typical aquaculture infrastructure comprises of a variety of immersed components and structures, such as nets, connecting ropes, buoys and cages, which form an integral part of breeding environments[2]. Safe and long lasting solutions can be developed by mimicking some of the naturally evolved and effective antifouling techniques used by aquatic organisms[9]. These approaches usually include production of chemical molecules along with specific physical features on the organism’s surface (like micro- topography, wettability etc.) to prevent the settlement of fouling organisms[10,11,12]. This study elaborates on the practicality of the technique by testing the biofouling resistance of nanostructural modification of fishing net immersed under static conditions in a tropical marine environment (Sea of Oman) for a period of one month. The performance of the nanostructured nets was evaluated and compared to the results obtained using commercial copper based antifouling paint, wherein it was observed to perform significantly better over the test duration
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