Antifouling studies and coating strategies for marine deployed structures

Biofouling represents a real technical challenge in the marine environment. Current antifouling strategies offer insufficient protection from biofouling for many applications, e.g. water sensing technologies, and effective novel methods of antifouling are required to support technology developments in the marine. Non-toxic approaches to antifouling are desirable; however, further development of effective non-toxic antifouling materials requires a greater understanding of the interaction between a biofouling organisms and a surface. At present, there is a lack of agreement regarding the influence of surface surface texture on microbial behaviour at a surface. Surface texture and roughness has been reported to both negatively and positively affect biofouling organism recruitment to a surface. However, it appears that the response can vary with both organism and adhesion mechanisms, and nature of the coating or surface texture. These parameters influence the surface area available to a settling cell during early biofilm formation, the adhesive strength of a cell to a substrate, and direction of local hydrodynamic forces, the local chemical nature of the substrate and accumulation of organic matter on the surface. Surface topography encountered by a settling organism or propagule is also dynamic and changes with the length of immersion and size and abundance of previously adhered cells. Further investigation of the potential to optimise surface coatings for reduced biofouling of surfaces is required. This work demonstrates the deployment of several novel materials with different chemical characteristics that have the potential to reduce biofilm formation on sensor surfaces and to aid in sensor maintenance. The deployments are carried out over a number of months in Dublin bay using multiple panel platforms to facilitate removal for biofilm characterisation intermittently.