Jana and Seth.
26
Nanomaterials Based Superhydrophobic and Antimi-
crobial Coatings
NanoWorld Journal
Mini-Review Open Access
https://doi.org/10.17756/nwj.2020-077
Malobi Seth and Sunirmal Jana*
Specialty Glass Technology Division,CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, India
*
Correspondence to:
Dr. Sunirmal Jana
Specialty Glass Technology Division
CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research
Institute,196 Raja S.C. Mullick Road
Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032, West Bengal, India
Tel: +91 33 2473 3496
Fax: +91 33 2473 0957
E-mail: sjana@cgcri.res.in
Received: April 04, 2020
Accepted: July 07, 2020
Published: July 09, 2020
Citation: Jana S, Seth M. 2020. Nanomaterials
Based Superhydrophobic and Antimicrobial
Coatings. NanoWorld J 6(2): 26-28
Copyright: © 2020 Jana and Seth. Tis is an Open
Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (CC-BY) (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits commercial
use, including reproduction, adaptation, and
distribution of the article provided the original
author and source are credited.
Published by United Scientifc Group
Abstract
Now-a-days, it is obvious that nanomaterials can play signifcant role in every
sphere of our modern lives. On this aspect, use of nanomaterials in developing
advanced functional materials or towards enhancement in surface related physical
properties including superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic properties is very
important both in fundamental and applied research. In this regard, most of the
researchers agreed that there is a close relationship between superhydrophobicity
of material surface with its antimicrobial activity. Tis review briefy highlights
the use of some inorganic/organic based nanomaterials such as Ag, Cu, ZnO,
TiO
2
as inorganic materials and graphene, chitosan nanoparticles as organic
materials in making superhydrophobic antimicrobial coatings. Based on reported
literature, possible mechanisms of antimicrobial activity of the nanomaterials
derived superhydrophobic coatings have been discussed. It is worthy to note that
the coatings with the advancement in self-cleaning and anti-biofouling as well as
superhydrophobic and antimicrobial properties are highly potential for enormous
applications in biomedical felds including medical textiles, personal protective
equipment (PPE), surgical appliances, biodevices and so on. In this review, the
challenges and future prospect of the nanomaterials based superhydrophobic
coatings have also been discussed briefy. Tis mini review may encourage
researchers towards development of superhydrophobic and antimicrobial coatings
on various substrates like plastics, glasses, cotton fabrics for making PPE to
protect the dedicated medical / healthcare personnel from the currently pandemic
COVID-19 disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
Keywords
Nanomaterials, Superhydrophobic coatings, Antimicrobial coatings
Introduction
Inspired by a special surface property of insect wings or lotus leaf, the
superhydrophobic materials have attracted tremendous attention to materials
researchers towards development of such materials for a wide range of applications
including healthcare and biomedical kits / devices [1]. Superhydrophobic surfaces
are capable to exhibit static water contact angle (SCA) ≥150° and water sliding
angle (WSA) ≤10°. Te surface of these materials typically consists of hierarchical
surface texture with micro-nano scale surface roughness and a layer of low
surface energy material [2]. Te presence of low surface energy material prevents
adhesion/penetration of water molecule into the surface by the formation of air
pockets between the hierarchical rough surface structure. Now-a-days, various
nanomaterials have been used to generate desired hierarchical surface roughness.
Among these, metal and metal oxide-based nanomaterials such as Ag [3], Cu