Amphiphobic coatings for antifouling in marine environment

Abstract Highly hydro and oleophobic materials applied to needs of the marine environment represent a relatively young field achieving growing interest as innovative solution, where technological and ecological aspects allow to be merged, taking into account the limitations imposed by international laws in terms of environmental protection. In this work a superhydrophobic (SH) coating for seawater applications has been characterized and tested in both laboratory and field conditions, since investigations in real seawater are crucial to evaluate the behaviour of SH surfaces because of a complexity not reproducible in laboratory. Taking into account the real conditions where the surface can operate oleophobicity can be investigated in presence of organic and inorganic pollution. The amphiphobic surface has been also studied to simulate those applications where the surface undergoes to thermal stress like pipelines and desalination plants affected by biofouling. The preliminary wearing test shows the effective resistance to a continuous low velocity impact of micrometric particles of the coating investigated here. Finally, time durability in field tests has been studied as a function of immersion angle in real seawater environment to investigate the role of the coating on early stages of biofilm growth.