Anti-biofouling polymer surfaces by a top-down approach

Polymer have been used to develop alternative antifouling coatings against primary protein adsorption. Antifouling polymers have very diverse chemical, structural, and surface topological properties, but they share common physical characteristics: hydrophilic, electrically neutral, or highly hydrated, causing strong interactions with water molecules while reducing interactions with proteins. To stabilize polymer coating under various environmental conditions, chemical end-grafting of polymer chains have been utilized. However, challenges remain in developing a universal non-fouling material that contains the necessary attributes for the next generation of polymer-based anti-biofouling coating technologies. Here we report a radically new paradigm of designing a polymeric coating that is a few nanometers thick (“polymer nanocoating”) with an anti-biofouling property. The nanocoating is composed of homopolymer chains physically adsorbed onto solid surfaces. The results demonstrate that the polymer nanocoatings composed of high surface energy hydrophobic polymers exhibit an antifouling property against a model protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA), while counterpart spin-cast thin films still exhibit adsorption of the protein.