Long time super-hydrophobic fouling release coating with the incorporation of lubricant

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.porgcoat.2021.106136Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Super-hydrophobic surface was prepared with 50 % NFe3O4 at 0.01 of pigment/binder ratio.

  • The migrating PSO by channel diffusion ensures high leaching efficiency.

  • Leaching PSO on super-hydrophobic surface makes more than 98 % of biofilm removal rate.

  • Long time super-hydrophobic surface retention is due to PSO leached.

Abstract

Marine biofouling can be better governed by using super-hydrophobic and lubricant leaching behavior. It was prepared for a long time super-hydrophobic fouling release coating with the incorporation of phenylmethylsilicone oil as lubricant. With the reasonable control of the mass ratio of mixed nano-particles (hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotube and nano-magnetite), prepared reinforced coating has excellent super-hydrophobicity and lubricant leaching efficiency. Comparable studies with reported FR coating and commercial silicone coating, it exhibits excellent anti-biofilm adhesion performance with up to 98 % of biofilm adhesion removal rate. More beneficial, the isolation layer composed of the leached phenylmethylsilicone oil can make a good buffer effect for the reinforced coating surface, alleviating the deformation or damage caused by the friction between sand and the reinforced coating surface, effectively. This work is establishing new investments in environment-friendly fouling release coatings.

Introduction

Complex marine environment is particularly aggressive in the substrates immersed in seawater, mainly for metals and alloys, which caused the occurrence of biofouling due to the interactions between the substrates and microorganisms, algae, plants and nutrients [1]. The unwanted biofouling with the settlement of marine organisms has serious impacts for the marine industry, including maintenance operation, replacement of offshore structures, extra fuel consumption and the increase in greenhouse gas [2]. More seriously, excessive biofouling can eventually lead to the loss of vessels in maneuverability, which poses the life-threatening for relevant staff. It has been reported that the biofouling costs of US$ 150 billion every year just in marine transportation [3]. Thus, it is a key challenge for preventing biofouling [4,5].

Long term industrial production shows that the most effective way for the economy is to brush marine antifouling coatings with 80,000 tons of the annual consumption [3]. Comprehensive consideration of economy, friendly alternatives without toxicity, such as fouling release (FR) technology has been focused, which typically works by reducing the adhesion strength of the fouling organism on the surface. Based on the non-killing methods, the adhered organisms can be easily removed by hydrodynamic stress during navigation or by gentle mechanical cleaning [6].

Polysiloxanes with unique physical and chemical properties have been utilized in marine FR coatings since 1961 [1]. Especially, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with less reactive, less toxic, and less costly is the most common admixture based on the concept of environmental protection, which provides the surface with low surface free energy and high hydrophobic [7,8]. It shows good antifouling properties [9]. To further develop the effect of PDMS in FR coating, the enhancement of inorganic boosting nano-particles and the incorporation of non-toxic silicone oil have become inevitable [4,10]. For nano-particles, increasing the interaction between FR coating based on PDMS and nano-particles enhances cost savings, improves the mechanical, self-cleaning, and super-hydrophobic characteristics, to further improve the antifouling performance of the coatings [8,11,12]. And for non-toxic silicone oil, the leaching of silicone oil on the coating surface references the mucous secretion technique and act as lubricant-infused materials, which improves the FR performance by enhancing the interfacial slippage of the coating surface with sufficient evidence of non-harmful to the environment [6,[13], [14], [15]]. Imaginary, combining the two enhancement technologies, in particular, the super-hydrophobic characteristics achieved by nano-particles and the leaching lubricant-infused are effectively combined. It will achieve better antifouling performance. More importantly, whether the leached silicone oil can protect the lotus effect characteristics of the surface for a long time, to achieve long-term super-hydrophobic characteristics. Relevant research has important benefits for the FR coating based on PDMS.

The super-hydrophobicity is a natural phenomenon, which allows the plant and organisms to easily clean themselves by water repellency [[16], [17], [18]]. And the super-hydrophobicity has exhibited potential for marine antifouling, which has been fully demonstrated on the shark skin [19]. At present, the publications on the super-hydrophobic characteristic of nano-particles enhanced coatings increase [3]. And nano-magnetite (NFe3O4) with the Fe (II) and Fe (III) contents in its structure can act as super-paramagnetic which is applied in various fields [20]. It has been researched on the super-hydrophobicity with extremely low surface free energy after enhancing the related coatings [10]. However, the complex marine environment will damage the coating surface, which leads to the gradual disappearance of the super-hydrophobicity, that is, the super-hydrophobic surface is difficult to exist in seawater for a long time. It seriously restricts the engineering application of relevant coatings. Previous publications on the effect of the nano-particles on the leaching behavior of silicone oil in the FR coatings based on PDMS results that the leaching efficiency of silicone oil will be weakened due to the incorporation of granular particles [15,21]. Therefore, in the development of nano-magnetite reinforced PDMS coatings, the high leaching efficiency of silicone oil also needs to be considered.

In this work, it will focus on the excellent fouling release performance with outstanding super-hydrophobic properties and high silicone oil leaching efficiency properties. Through the preparation of the mixed nano-particles (the mixture of hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotube and nano-magnetite) reinforced FR coating based on PDMS with the incorporation of lubricant (phenylmethylsilicone oil), it has high lubricant (oil) leaching efficiency properties with ensuring the super-hydrophobicity, which can achieve excellent antifouling performance. Meanwhile, the protective function of leaching lubricant on the super-hydrophobicity of the surface will be evaluated. The purpose is to develop the long term super-hydrophobic fouling release surface with the incorporation of lubricant-infused, which is beneficial to marine antifouling industrial application.

Section snippets

Materials

Hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with a viscosity of 5000 mPa•s was purchased from Dayi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. (Yantai, China). Phenylmethylsilicone oil (PSO) with a viscosity of 100 mPa·s was purchased from Hualing Resin Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). Tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) from Kemiou Chemical Reagent Company (Tianjin, China) was used as the crosslinking agent, and Bismuth neodecanoate (BiND) from Deyin Chemical Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China) was used as the effective

Super-hydrophobic properties

Nano-magnetite (NFe3O4) acts as superior physico-chemical characteristics due to the Fe (II) and Fe (III) contents, especially, processes super-paramagnetic for nanoscale, which can be applied in biosensors, cell tracking, engineering, and so on [10,12,24,25]. Based on super-paramagnetic, as well as large surface-to-volume ratio, it can be used to form composite stimulus-responsive materials, which processes smart surface and interfacial characteristics in virtue of reversible dynamic

Conclusion

The mixed nano-particles (MWCNTs−OH and NFe3O4) reinforced FR coating based on PDMS with the incorporation of PSO was prepared, which envisaged the construction of a super-hydrophobic surface and the leaching behavior of PSO. And the mixed nano-particles were fixed at 1 % value of P/B. Correlation analysis results indicate that the reinforced coating NP0.5 with 50 % mass ratio of NFe3O4 has the super-hydrophobic properties, which was due to the good dispersion of NFe3O4. When the mass ratio of

Author statement

Under supervision by Miao Ba, Fang-xin Fan, Yi-ming Zheng, Jia-hao Liu, and Qing Wu performed sample preparation and data analysis. Miao Ba developed mechanics modelling and analysis. Miao Ba, Jun-jun Kong, and Yu-feng Wang performed sample preparation and structure fabrication. Fang-xin Fan, Yi-ming Zheng, and Miao Ba performed calculations. All authors read and contributed to the manuscript.

Declaration of Competing Interest

We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled “Long time super-hydrophobic fouling release coating with the incorporation of lubricant”, which we wish to be considered for publication in “Progress in Organic Coatings”. No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript, and the manuscript is approved by all authors for publication. I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously,

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51909014). The authors gratefully acknowledge for financial support. The authors gratefully acknowledgement for the help of associate professor Glogowski Elizabeth M. from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.

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