Preparation And Research Of Bio-inspired Marine Antifouling Materials

Sailing of ships and marine operation are heavily affected by marine biological fouling,which leads to much higher oil consumption and cost.With the development of society,the problem will be increasingly severe.And how to solve biofouling has been a worldwide problem.In present,biofouling can be inhibited through applying antifoulants,but people are forced to develop a new environmental friendly antifouling material to avoid the environmental damage.Thus,bionic marine antifouling materials are prepared according to antifouling mechanism.At present,the development and research of bio-inspired antifouling materials are mainly divided into two types:biological antifouling agents and novel biomimetic polymer materials.Bio-antifouling agents are mainly extracted from marine microbes,seaweed and marine invertebrates.Bio-inspired antifouling material mainly includes structural bionic antifouling materials,such as shark,dolphin,shell and other special microstructures,and hydrogel materials which are similar to the mucus of marine animal epidermis.Through a large number of initial experiments,the hydrogels,which show excellent antifouling performance,are selected and improved.According to the development process of marine pollution,the attachment and accumulation of diatom is one of the important sections.Thus,antifouling material is designed and prepared aims at it.According to the living habits and propagation mechanism of diatom,an environment-friendly antifouling agents with effective property of resisting to diatom attachment is added.From the above experiments,the hydrogel with excellent antifouling property is prepared.According to the mechanism of polymerization,strong and high density covalent bonds between hydrogel and different substrates without being modified(porous or microstructure surface)are fabricated.Hybrid combination of hydrogel and solid material is achieved,and the adhesive strength will reach 0.87 MPa.After being immersed in ocean for 3 months,the hydrogel coating is still tough and smooth.According to the experiment,the swelling of hydrogel can be controlled through the hybrid combination to solid material.On the one hand,excessive swelling of hydrogel can be restricted by the adhesion,which has contributed to maintain the microstructure and morphology.On the other hand,by the inhibition of adhesion,a three-dimensional array morphology of hydrogel will emergence spontaneously after swelling.The self-healing mechanism of hydrogel is discovered.A hydrogel utilizing the dynamic cross-linking between the hydroxyl of PVA chains and borate is prepared,and it shows an ultrafast self-healing property.The hydrogel exhibits 100%cure in both tensile fracture stress and elongation after healing for 10 seconds in air,while it exhibits 70%cure in fracture stress after healing for 60 seconds underwater.In additions,the hydrogel shows a smart self-healing property,which gives priority to heal the new cracks and fractures.