Grafting of ionic liquids on stainless steel surface for antibacterial application.

Stainless steel (SS) is favored for many uses due to its excellent chemical resistance, thermal stability and mechanical properties. Biofilms can be formed on stainless steel and may lead to serious hygiene problems and economic losses in many areas, e.g. food processing, public infrastructure and healthcare. For the first time, our work endeavored to make SS having antibacterial properties, ionic liquids (ILs) were grafted on SS surface via silane treatment followed by thiol-ene click reaction. The chemical structure and composition of the ILs grafted stainless-steel coupon surfaces were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The antibacterial activity has been investigated, and the results showed that the ILs grafted SS surface exhibited significant antibacterial effects against Gram-negative Escherichia coli. Additionally, the results obtained here indicated that the ILs used here having bromide anion showed much better antibacterial activity against E. coli than the corresponding ILs with tetrafluoroborate and hexafluorophosphate as anions. These results obtained here can help to design novel and more efficient stainless steel having antibacterial surface.

Nafion coated stainless steel for anti-biofilm application.

Biofilms can adhere to most surfaces and have caused a wide range of problems in various industrial processes as well as daily life activities. In this work, the anti-biofilm ability of Nafion-coated stainless steel surface was investigated and our results showed that stainless steel discs coated with 1% Nafion can significantly reduce E. coli adhesion. Nafion has a large amount of negatively charged sulphonate groups, and the findings of this study suggest that the negative surface charge can greatly reduce bacterial adhesion through increasing the electrostatic repulsion between negatively charged bacterial cells and Nafion coated stainless steel surface. The roughness of coated and uncoated stainless steel discs made no significant differences while the hydrophobic of the discs increased after coated with Nafion.