Cooperative enhancement of fungal repelling performance by surface photografting of stereochemical bi-molecules

Fungal contamination could increase exponentially on any convenient sites if without antifungal agents, thus seriously threatening human health. In this work, a cooperative fungal repelling coating has been fabricated by surface photografting polymerization of bi-molecules, polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and bornyl acrylate (BA), which combined amphiphilic feature with stereochemical fungal repelling strategy. ATR-FTIR and EDS were used to confirm the synthesized copolymers. The surface microstructures of the coating film were showed with AFM and SEM images. The cooperative enhancement of fungal repelling performance has been demonstrated through modulating the ratio between hydrophilic PEGDA and hydrophobic BA. When the ratio of monomers was 1:1, the coating exhibited the best cooperative effect on anti-adhesion of Aspergillus niger. Binary cooperation between PEG ring and bornyl cage is considered to play a crucial role in this coating system. Therefore, amphiphilic-stereochemistry is believed to be an effective strategy to prevent fungal adhesion.