Anti-Bio Adhesive Behavior and Mechanism of Polystyrene Microspheres Enhanced PEG-Based Hydrogels

Marine biofouling has become the main factor of marine economic loss. In this article, we studied the relationship between the PS-PEG hydrogels properties and the anti-bio adhesive behavior, such as amphiphilic, swelling degree, elastic modulus and roughness. Testing the adhesion behavior of marine bacteria and benthic diatom on PS-PEG hydrogel with different polystyrene microspheres content. Meanwhile, the influence of polystyrene microsphere content on the antifouling performance of hydrogel was emphatically analyzed and proposed the anti-bio adhesive behavior mechanism of PS-PEG hydrogels. The results showed that the antifouling performance of PS-PEG hydrogels was significantly enhanced by adding polystyrene microspheres. In the marine bacterial adhesion behavior, when polystyrene microspheres were added at 14.2 wt.%, the bacterial adhesion rate was respectively 3.85% and 0.01% for rinsing and washing samples, and the bacterial removal rate was 99.74%. In addition, in the benthic diatom adhesion behavior, the chlorophyll concentration a-values after rinsing and washing samples were only 0.019 mg/L and 0.002 mg/L with the same content of polystyrene microspheres, and the removal rate was 89.6%. At the same time, polystyrene microspheres enable PS-PEG hydrogels to exhibit amphiphilic, which could form a hydration layer by surface reorganization in seawater, the hardness and toughness of PS-PEG hydrogel substrate can be increased by adding appropriate polystyrene microspheres, and it also reduced the surface roughness of hydrogels after swelling in seawater. Accordingly, PS-PEG hydrogels can achieve efficient anti-bio adhesive behavior mainly through the synergistic effect of a highly hydrated layer, unstable surface and low roughness.