Bioinspired antifouling and antibacterial polymer coating with intrinsic self-healing property

Abstract

Infections caused by biofouling have become a serious concern in the health care sector. Multifunctional coatings with antifouling and antibacterial properties are widely used to combat these biofouling related infections. However, in practice macro or micro scratches or damages can happen to the coating, which can act as an active site for microbial deposition and destroy the antifouling or antibacterial functionality of the coating. Considering this fact, we have developed an excellent biocompatible and multifunctional coating with antifouling, antibacterial and self-healing properties. In this study, prebiotic chemistry inspired self-polymerization of aminomalononitrile (AMN) was used as a primary coating layer, which acted as a primer to graft vitamin B5 analogous methacrylamide polymer poly(B5AMA) and zwitterionic compound 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) containing polymer poly (MPC-st-B5AMA) by forming strong hydrogen bonds. B5AMA having multiple polar groups in the structure acted as an intrinsic self-healing material and showed an excellent antifouling property against protein and bacteria, maintaining a good hydration layer similar to the MPC containing polymer. To impart the antibacterial property to the coating, silver nanoparticles have also been incorporated, which showed more than 90% killing efficiency against both Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria with significant reduction of their adhesion on the surface. Incorporation of self-healing property into the fouling repelling and antibacterial coating can significantly extend the durability of the multifunctional coating, making it promising for biomedical applications.