Recent progress in bio-inspired biofilm-resistant polymeric surfaces

Abstract

Any surface of human interest can serve as a substrate for biofilm growth, sometimes with detrimental effects. The social and economic consequences of biofilm-mediated damage to surfaces are significant, the financial impact being estimated to be billions of dollars every year. After describing traditional biocide-based approaches for the remediation of biofilm-affected surfaces, this review deals with more recent developments in material science, focusing on non-toxic, eco-sustainable nature-inspired biomaterials with anti-biofilm properties superior to the conventional biocide-based approaches in terms of addressing the biofilm problem.

Keywords:

• Anti-biofilm
• bio-hybrid materials
• coatings
• natural molecules
• polymers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondazione Cariplo under the Grant no. 2011-0277.