development of a nontoxic universal antifouling coating

mightyhorton · #1 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

One of my sons is a chemistry guy. He sent this to me. It is fun to read. Ain't science wonderful!

To prevent the accumulation of unwanted microorganisms, plants, and animals on surfaces exposed to a marine environment, coatings are applied to the submerged surface. One challenge in creating such a coating is that the critical length scales involved in organism attachment range from hundreds of nanometers to centimeters. Efimenko et al. have developed polymer coatings that possess a hierarchical wrinkled structure. They stretched and then cross-linked the surface of poly(dimethylsiloxane), after which they applied a fluorinated silane monolayer. On gentle relaxation of the stress, a rippled surface layer formed, wherein each wrinkle had smaller-scale wrinkles on top of it that themselves bore even smaller wrinkles, proceeding over five generations. In seawater tests, flat polymer films showed fouling after a few weeks, whereas the wrinkled polymers resisted barnacle accumulation over a period of 18 months. In tests on the adhesion of green algae zoospores, the wrinkled films performed less well, as the spores could nestle and be protected from shear flows and physical contacts within the wrinkles. However, a combination of topology and the right surface chemistry conferred improved resistance, pointing toward development of a nontoxic universal antifouling coating.
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 1, 10.1021/am9000562 (2009).

sailingdog · #2 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

Yeah, but will the boat sail faster with that kind of coating on it??? and how much would it cost to apply it?? and can it be applied by the average boater??

Joesaila · #3 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

If it works better than 'flat polymer' it'l sell. We had a local fellow add 'hot peppers' to bottom paint some years ago. The newspapter article looked appealing, but since you don't hear about it, it probably didn't work.

trantor12020 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

I read in a magazine, Chilli Powder mixed with antifoul paint do work. So any seafood you picked up around your boat should come with chilli embeded. Talk about marinating.
This wrinkle on paint seems like skin of a shark. Its rough yet barnacles don't grow there and shark swims very fast.

Fstbttms · #5 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by trantor12020

I This wrinkle on paint seems like skin of a shark. Its rough yet barnacles don't grow there and shark swims very fast.

Most fish don't grow barnacles or other shelled animals because they keep moving all the time, not because they have wrinkled skin (which most fish don't have, BTW.)

The product mentioned by the OP will almost certainly be unsuitable for pleasure boaters, IMHO. Besides being undoubtably expensive and difficult to apply, the description of its properties admit that it is not particularly effective against soft growth, which is 99% of what fouls properly-maintained boat hulls. How is that any different from the current crop of copper-based anti foulings?. BTW, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation recently announced that they have no plans to ban cuprous oxide as an anti fouling ingredient. If there is no regulatory push use non-toxic anti fouling products, it seems unlikely that they will gain a significant foothold in the marketplace.

Skipaway · #6 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

Sounds like a product I want. I think all your son needs is a marketing manager. Then, we will read about the lauditory recomendations here, and sailnet will stock it. If you finance that, the product will finance his student loans and your current and next and next boats. Good luck.

brak · #7 (**permalink**) 05-14-2009

what we need is an automatic boat bottom cleaning system. a small robot with suckers like the loach or other sucker-fish, that you can dump in the water next to your hull and let it go to town overnight. Problemo solved. Like "Rumba" for boats

Fstbttms · #8 (**permalink**) 05-15-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by brak

what we need is an automatic boat bottom cleaning system. a small robot with suckers like the loach or other sucker-fish, that you can dump in the water next to your hull and let it go to town overnight. Problemo solved. Like "Rumba" for boats

I assume you mean this robot would be cleaning unpainted bottoms? 'Cause otherwise, ain't nothin' solved. And if so, you should try cleaning an unpainted bottom sometime, then come back and tell us how likely this invention is to work.

brak · #9 (**permalink**) 05-15-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fstbttms

I assume you mean this robot would be cleaning unpainted bottoms? 'Cause otherwise, ain't nothin' solved. And if so, you should try cleaning an unpainted bottom sometime, then come back and tell us how likely this invention is to work.

geez, I was just kidding

I think there are a few more technical issues here that need to be solved before we get to the kind of bottom it would clean

LookingForCruiser · #10 (**permalink**) 05-15-2009

I knew a guy who worked on little (4 or 5 feet long) submersible robots that would crawl along the hulls of ships looking for defects. They didn't use suction cups, it was some sort of propellers pressing them against the hull surface.

It didn't have any cleaning functionality, it was just for inspection purposes.

I saw it sitting above a test tank, but didn't get to see it operational.