A new breakthrough in marine antifouling!

For all kinds of instruments deployed in seawater for a long time, biofouling is a serious problem, which not only shortens the service life of the instruments, increases the frequency and cost of manual maintenance, but also may lead to drift of observation signals and data errors

An introduction to marine biofouling

Marine biofouling refers to the phenomenon of equipment damage caused by the attachment and erosion of fouling organisms in the ocean on the surface of materials

So how do marine organisms adsorb on the surface of the material? In fact, the attachment of marine organisms has gone through a complex process

Due to the vast sea area of ​​our country, different sea areas have different pollution situations

The history of antifouling coatings

In ancient times, because ships were made of wood, drilling organisms such as ship maggots became the most important fouling organisms in ancient times

Before the liberation of China, antifouling coatings were mainly imported from Europe

The advent of tin self-polishing antifouling coatings in the 1970s quickly captured most of the antifouling coatings market

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The current mainstream antifouling coatings include self-polishing antifouling coatings, low surface energy antifouling coatings, natural product antifouling coatings, and bionic antifouling coatings

Recently, the latest research by the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology) and Xiamen University has brought some anti-fouling tips
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The researchers studied the anti-fouling performance of natural product-based anti-fouling coatings on 6 kinds of commonly used marine sensor metal and non-metal materials through long-term marine experiments in the subtropical sea areas of Xiamen and Shenzhen
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Relevant research results were published in International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation
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Applying antifouling paint to the surface of the in-situ instrument shell material is one of the main methods to reduce biological adhesion, but the existing antifouling paint is often highly toxic, which not only pollutes seawater, but also may cause damage to the biological objects being monitored.
However, some other low surface energy coatings have poor static antifouling effect and are not suitable for sensors statically deployed in seawater
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In response to these problems, the Shenzhen Advanced Institute and Xiamen University team cooperated to study the antifouling performance of natural product camptothecin (CPT)-based antifouling coatings on instrument housings of different materials in a subtropical sea area
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In the study, the researchers made 316L stainless steel, TC4 titanium alloy, 7075 aluminum alloy, polyoxymethylene, polyvinyl chloride, Teflon 6 kinds of commonly used marine instrument shell materials into hanging boards, and placed them underwater in Xiamen's Wuyuan Bay.
To test the antifouling performance of CPT-based antifouling coating on the surface of the above materials
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The sea test results showed that the CPT-based antifouling coatings showed excellent anti-biological adhesion performance on the above 6 materials within 3 months.
clean
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After 9 months, the coated areas still had significantly less fouling organisms than the control areas, with the plastic material showing better biofouling performance than the metal material
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In addition, the two parties also conducted a sea test of the antifouling efficacy of CPT-based antifouling coatings on three in-situ sensors developed by the Shenzhen Advanced Institute team
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The buoy sea trial results show that when the CPT-based coating is used for the underwater in-situ sensor, the surface of the in-situ sensor housing can be kept clean for at least 4 months; compared with the case without coating treatment, the maintenance-free period of the sensor is greatly extended
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It is reported that this technology not only reduces the labor cost of marine instrument maintenance, but also enhances the reliability of the sensor working in the marine environment
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CPT-based coatings can be used as an effective anti-biofouling solution to enhance the long-term underwater performance of marine instruments in real marine environments
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