Biofouling is a critical problem that limits numerous
technologies
including water desalination and marine transportation. The existing
solutions, such as copper-based paint to mitigate ship hull fouling,
are known to harm aquatic species. Although hydrophilic and zwitterionic
materials have demonstrated great promise in resisting the formation
of biofilms, they demonstrated limited effectiveness at the solid–liquid–air
interface, the location most prone to biofilm formation by motile
bacteria. While an amphiphilic copolymer comprising a statistical
mixture of zwitterionic and fluorinated units exhibited excellent
antifouling performance at the triple interface, the long-fluorinated
side chain raises concerns regarding bioaccumulation. Here, two amphiphilic
copolymers, each made of a pyridinium-based zwitterionic and hydrophobic
repeat units with a short fluorinated chain (1H,1H,2H,2H-perflurooctyl
and 2,2,3,4,4,4-hexafluorobutyl groups), were synthesized using initiated chemical vapor deposition. Fineman–Ross
analysis demonstrated the formation of random copolymers with a preference
for 4-vinylpyridine incorporation. The antibiofilm performance remained
good for both hydrophobic chains: amphiphilic copolymers outperformed
pure zwitterionic chemistry by 43.8 and 39.3%, as demonstrated usingPseudomonas aeruginosathat forms biofilms at the
triple interface. The amphiphilic coatings reported here can be used
to prevent biofilm formation at the triple interface in marine transportation,
food manufacturing, and medical devices, while avoiding the environmental
concerns related to perfluoroalkyl substances