Prolonging the duration of preventing bacterial adhesion of nanosilver-containing polymer films through...

A superhydrophobic coating composed of silver nanoparticles was developed on copper from fluorinated multilayered polyelectrolyte films to examine its performance in preventing microbial adhesion. Antibacterial and antibiofouling experiments for this novel coating were conducted with SRB. From the disk diffusion tests (for 48 h), it was found that, compared to the traditional coating composed of nanosilver, this novel coating significantly improved antibacterial performance and long-term effectiveness. The oxidation states of the immobilized silver in polyelectrolyte multilayer films were investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and the stability of the immobilized silver was evaluated through a leaching test. It was found that if silver was exposed to aqueous environments some ionic silver species would be produced and released. The ion release kinetics showed that the duration of sustained release of antibacterial Ag ions from the novel coatings was prolonged, which was why they had more long-term antibacterial performance.