Engineering of Tannic Acid-Inspired Antifouling and Antibacterial Membranes through Co-deposition of Zwitterionic Polymers and Ag NPs

Recently, combining the inorganic and organic components to develop dual-functional surface (antibacterial and antifouling) has resulted in the widespread investigations. However, the preparation of the dual-functional surface is limited by the availability of reactive surface chemistries at a material’s surface. Herein, owing to the multifunctionality of Tannic acid (TA), we proposed a universal, simple and environmentally friendly approach to integrate the inorganic (Ag NPs) and organic (zwitterionic) components into the membrane surface to simultaneously endow the surface with antifouling and antibacterial ability, respectively. The Ag NPs and zwitterionic polymer were co-deposited onto the TA decorated surface. The obtained membrane surface exhibited long-term and robust bactericidal activity. Meanwhile, due to the zwitterionic structure, the membrane could effectively resist bacterial adhesion. Additionally, the proposed strategy could also be employed to construct many kinds of dual-functional surfa...