The Challenge of Non Fouling Surfaces: Polymers could be the Answer

Journal of Polymer Science & Applications is a scholarly peer-reviewed, academic journal that publishes original research articles undergoing peer review process with the help of experts in the field of Polymer Science.

The immersion of engineered materials in water environment such as sea water, industrial waters (heat exchangers, pipes), body fluids, etc., is always accompanied by an accumulation and colonization of their surfaces with biological matter and water born organism (e.g. bacteria, barnacles, algae, etc.). This process, known as biofouling, affects detrimentally the materials and related devices performance in many applications. For example, biofouling of ship hulls causes reduction in the ship speed and increases the fuel consumption up to ~ 40% more as compared to the non-fouled vehicles. Moreover, the greenhouse gas production increases and the formed biofilms spread the water born organism around the world – a process that could destroy the balance in sensitive ecosystems. Biofouling on measuring instruments used in sea, oceans and on the coast could significantly affect the data quality and the instrument performance.

The biofouling generates also problems in industrial applications, such as e.g. heat exchangers, where due to the biofilm formation the heat transfer rate is reduced by 20 to 50%. This results into an increase in the global expenditure to control the problem with ~ $15 billion per annum [1]. The biofouling is the primary limitation for widening the application of membrane technology, microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes for drinking water production and wastewater treatment. The reason is that the formed biofilms significantly reduce the permeating flux, increase the energy consumption, and could result in contamination of filtrated water.

Biofouling is a huge problem for the biomedical implants and devices as well [2]. The biological fluids are rich in proteins, cells, etc., and they also could be contaminated by pathogens. All these species could strongly adhere onto the biomaterials surfaces, initiating biofouling and changing drastically the original surfaces characteristics, deteriorating in this way the biomaterials performance. For example, the microbial colonization of catheters often results into urinary tract infections which makes the latter the most common hospital-acquired infections.

Kindly ensure to submit your contributions by 27^th February, 2020 in order to enable us process the article for publication in the current year itself. Submissions after the due date are considered for the next issue.

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With Best Regards,
Andrew James
Journal of Polymer Science & Applications
E-mail: polymersci@peerjournal.org