Influence of Surface-Energy Components of Ni-P-TiO2-PTFE Nanocomposite Coatings on Bacterial Adhesion

The influence of total surface energy on bacterial adhesion has been investigated intensively with the frequent conclusion that bacterial adhesion is less on low-energy surfaces. However, there are also a number of contrary findings that high-energy surfaces have a smaller biofouling tendency. Recently, it was found that the CQ ratio, which is defined as the ratio of Lifshitz-van der Waals (LW) apolar to electron donor surface-energy components of substrates, has a strong correlation to bacterial adhesion. However, the electron donor surface-energy components of substrates varied over only a very limited range. In this article, a series of Ni-P-TiO2-PTFE nanocomposite coatings with wide range of surface-energy components were prepared using an electroless plating technique. The bacterial adhesion and removal on the coatings were evaluated with different bacteria under both static and flow conditions. The experimental results demonstrated that there was a strong correlation between bacterial attachment (or removal) and the CQ ratio. The coatings with the lowest CQ ratio had the lowest bacterial adhesion or the highest bacterial removal, which was explained using the extented DLVO theory.