Abstract The biofouling of marine structures presents a problem for maritime industries, including increasing fuel and operational costs. There has been much work developing and evaluating chemically ‘ambiguous’ amphiphilic coatings based upon hydrophobic fluoropolymer and hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). Many of these coatings have shown good fouling-release performance against diatoms, which present a fouling challenge to commercially-available state-of-the-art silicone-based fouling-release coatings. However, PEG is prone to oxidation, which limits its practical use in the marine environment, and thus an alternative hydrophilic material would be desirable in the future development of amphiphilic coatings. In this regard, zwitterionic materials are emerging as a promising class of hydrophilic antifouling material, which we hypothesized would be a suitable alternative to PEG within amphiphilic coatings. To test this hypothesis, cross-linked amphiphilic films consisting of commercially available perfluoropolyethers and the zwitterionic monomer sulfobetaine methacrylate were developed and studied. The difficulty in formulating these chemically incompatible species was overcome by careful choice of solvents and a series of prototype cross-linked films were prepared in which increasing quantities of zwitterion were systematically incorporated. The fouling-release performance of these films was tested against the diatom Navicula incerta, a common microfouling organism responsible for the formation of so-called ‘slime’ layers, and antifouling performance with cypris larvae of two barnacle species, Balanus amphitrite, and Balanus improvisus. To expand the scope of the study, the clinically-relevant biofilm-forming pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, which is a major culprit in the infection and failure of millions of indwelling medical devices, was also evaluated. Results indicate that the incorporation of zwitterion into perfluoropolyethers leads to significant improvements in fouling-release performance and these amphiphilic coatings display potential in fouling-release applications.

中文翻译：

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两亲性全氟聚醚-两性离子交联聚合物薄膜的制备及防污性能评价

摘要 海洋结构的生物污垢给海运业带来了一个问题，包括增加燃料和运营成本。已经有很多工作开发和评估基于疏水性含氟聚合物和亲水性聚（乙二醇）（PEG）的化学“模糊”两亲性涂层。许多这些涂层对硅藻表现出良好的污垢释放性能，这对市售的最先进的有机硅基污垢释放涂层提出了污垢挑战。然而，PEG 容易氧化，这限制了其在海洋环境中的实际应用，因此在未来两亲性涂层的开发中需要一种替代的亲水材料。在这方面，两性离子材料正在成为一类有前途的亲水性防污材料，我们假设这将是两亲涂层中 PEG 的合适替代品。为了检验这一假设，开发和研究了由市售全氟聚醚和两性离子单体磺基甜菜碱甲基丙烯酸酯组成的交联两亲薄膜。通过仔细选择溶剂克服了配制这些化学不相容物质的困难，并制备了一系列原型交联膜，其中系统地掺入了越来越多的两性离子。这些薄膜的污垢释放性能针对硅藻 Navicula incerta（一种负责形成所谓“粘液”层的常见微污垢生物）以及两种藤壶物种（Balanus amphitrite 和 Balanus improvisus）的 cypris 幼虫的防污性能进行了测试. 为了扩大研究范围，还对临床相关的生物膜形成病原体金黄色葡萄球菌进行了评估，金黄色葡萄球菌是数百万留置医疗器械感染和失败的罪魁祸首。结果表明，将两性离子掺入全氟聚醚可显着改善污垢释放性能，并且这些两亲涂层在污垢释放应用中显示出潜力。