Mitigating Organic Adsorption and Biofilm Formation: Advances in Polymers at Interfaces

Dear Colleagues,

The development of low-fouling surfaces is one of the major strategies for mitigating adsorption of organic compounds and microbial biofilm formation on surfaces, resulting in fouling of engineered, medical, and marine related systems. An antifouling surface can be achieved by synthesizing inert interfaces comprising a low surface free energy for reduced deposition of colloids and microbes by blending polymer, coating, or grafting. Antifouling properties can also be achieved using polymers with high hydration, such as zwitterion polymers. Current efforts for development of such surfaces, with self-cleaning characteristics, are focused on the usage of responsive polymers, which change their structure and/or conformation to a certain environmental stimulus. Achieving low fouling surfaces has also been realized by improving surface wetting as well as developing certain surface morphologies, which biomimic different organisms’ oriented surfaces. In addition, surfaces with an antimicrobial activity, either continuous or stimuli-responsive, have been studied for a variety of applications. As expected, combinations of anti-adhesive and antimicrobial characteristics have shown elevated efficiencies for reducing microbial biofilm formation, with improved promising results for relatively longer time periods, compared to each of the strategies alone.

In particular, the topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Fundamental studies on anti-adhesive, antimicrobial, and a combination of the two for controlling biofilm formation;
• Applications of antifouling and anti-biofouling surfaces in the engineered, medical, and marine areas;
• Biomimetic approach for surface design and synthesis for microbial biofilm mitigation and biofouling control;
• Biologically based methods for antifouling surface design (controlled release of bioactive molecules such as biosurfactants, quorum quenching molecules, enzymes).

Prof. Moshe Herzberg
Guest Editor

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