Abstract
The growth of algae, barnacles, moulds and other organisms on ship hulls, concretes, painted or coated surfaces, especially in the tropics, could be harmful and aesthetically unattractive. Control of such growths usually includes the use of coatings that may contain chemicals that can destroy these organisms, and in some cases, other lives. However, manipulation of the topography of material surfaces in the so called Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) seems to be excellent safety approach of tackling bio-fouling problems. In this work, we have fabricated hydrophobic silica coatings of different particle sizes, ranging from 10 nm to 700 nm; the coatings have been impregnated with non-volatile oil (squalane) to obtain artificial rims of Nepenthes Pitcher plant. Wettability and anti-biofouling tests carried out on the fabricated coatings using water drops and algal cell media have shown that surfaces coated with the smallest nano-sized particles (10 nm) possess better stability and anti-biofouling characteristics toward algae adhesion.Keywords: Nano-particles, Porous coating, oil-impregnation, bio-fouling, wettability
Highlights
The growth of algae, barnacles, moulds and other organisms on ship hulls, concretes, painted or coated surfaces, especially in the tropics, could be harmful and aesthetically unattractive
If the organism can successively settle on the surface, they secrete sticky extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) onto the surface and become properly attached (Cortés et al, 2011)
This paper investigates the influence of particle size on wetting and anti-biofouling properties of silica coatings
Summary
Materials: Aerosil R202 hydrophobic fumed silica was obtained from Evonik Industry and supplied by Lawrence Industry, UK. Aerosil the R202 was produced by subjecting hydrophilic fumed silica to hydrophobisation with polydimethylsiloxane [1, 2]. Other silica powders (200 – 700 nm) - hydrophilic monodisperse silica particles were obtained from Fiber Optic Center Inc. The particles were cleaned ultrasonically by dispersing 5 g of the particles in 25 ml of ethanol and agitated for 10 minutes using Grant Ultrasonic bath (MXB6). The final settled silica was dried overnight in a vacuum oven at room temperature and hydrophobised under a constant agitation in 0.1M DCDMS in anhydrous toluene for 1 h using an air-tight box. Dichlorodimethylsilosane (DCDMS) used as hydrophobisation agent and squalane, the impregnating oil, were obtained from Sigma Aldrich; ethanol and toluene were obtained from Fisher Scientific
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