Study of Biofilm Growth on Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces Made from Fluoropor

Abstract

Undesired growth of biofilms represents a fundamental problem for all surfaces in long-term contact with aqueous media. Mature biofilms resist most biocide treatments and often are a pathogenic threat. One way to prevent biofilm growth on surfaces is by using slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS). SLIPS consist of a porous substrate which is infused with a lubricant immiscible with the aqueous medium in which the bacteria are suspended. Because of the lubricant, bacteria cannot attach to the substrate surface and thus formation of the biofilm is prevented. For this purpose, we manufactured substrates with different porosity and surface roughness values via UVinitiated free-radical polymerization in Fluoropor. Fluoropor is a class of highly fluorinated bulk-porous polymers with tunable porosity, which we recently introduced. We investigated the growth of the biofilm on the substrates, showing that a reduced surface roughness is beneficial for the reduction of biofilm growth. Samples of low roughness effectively reduced Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm growth for 7 days in a flow chamber experiment. The lowroughness samples also become transparent when infused with the lubricant, making such surfaces ideal for real-time observation of biofilm growth by optical examination.

Sustainable, self-cleaning, transparent, and moisture/oxygen-barrier coating films for food packaging

“…5b and S11), indicating that the cell adhesion properties of the sunflower oil-infused (CsW/SiO 2 )-coated PET film were significantly low, probably due to their surface fluidity. 67,68 The result suggests the antifouling of harmful microorganisms for the future food packaging film.…”

Controlling Geometry and Flow Through Bacterial Bridges on Patterned Lubricant‐Infused Surfaces (pLIS)

“…Only with LIS no bridge could be formed due to the antifouling property of LIS. [10,11] The second requirement is that a certain number of bacteria precipitating on the surfaces. Thus, the formation of bacterial bridges seems to be a consequence of dewetting process on pLIS covered with attached and precipitated bacteria and not due to the growth of biofilm bridges between adhesive clusters as was hypothesized in our previous study.…”

“…[ 9 ] Due to the liquid nature and smoothness of the liquid–liquid interface at the LIS’ surface, bacteria cannot strongly and irreversibly attach to it. [ 10,11 ]…”

Quantification Methods for Textile-Adhered Bacteria: Extraction, Colorimetric, and Microscopic Analysis

“…Staining may enhance the visibility of bacterial presence, but common dyes may stain not only the bacteria but also the material itself, resulting in high background signals [43,44]. Fluorescence labeling of bacteria is a convenient way of visualizing the bacteria [42,45,46,47,48,49,50,51], but careful adjustment of light exposure should be made to minimize the influence of auto-fluorescence of polymeric background [31,52].…”