There is no coating technology currently available to prevent the notorious biofilm formation issue. Here, a potential solution to fully address this tough issue is reported by developing a super-antifouling coating. The use of zwitterionic hydrogel (a double-sided tape) and commercial superglue is combined and a durable and ultrarobust antifouling zwitterionic (DURA-Z) coating is created that can be easily and universally applied on common substrates. Commercial superglue mostly for binding hydrophobic materials is used to strongly immobilize the superhydrophilic DURA-Z coating through interpenetration. DURA-Z coating effectively solves several key challenges preventing the current antifouling coatings from practical use, including difficult fabrication, low efficacy, poor toughness, and durability. The fabricated DURA-Z coating retains antifouling property after 90 d of immersion in water, 50 d of buffer shearing, and 30 d of water flushing, and after repeated knife scratch and sandpaper abrasion under 570 kPa. The DURA-Z coating achieves a rarely reported long-term biofilm resistance to both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and fungi: it remains almost "zero" microbe adhesion after continuously challenged by more than 109 cells mL-1 culture medium for 30 d.
Keywords: antifouling; biofilm resistance; durability; zwitterions.
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