Herein, a new anti-biofilm strategy

Herein, a new anti-biofilm strategy via spraying bacterially anti-adhesive modified polystyrene (MPS)/Ag microspheres was proposed, a superhydrophilic-type surface was created by spray-coating a kind of functionalized MPS/Ag microspheres onto arbitrary substratesurfaces, endowing the surfaces with durable antibacterial and bacterially anti-adhesive properties(Fig. 1). The MPS/Ag microspheres were designed via the hydroxylated polystyrene microspheres (HPS) (step a) to further modify with a micro/nanoscale hierarchical lotus-like structure and grafted with a layer of functionalized copolymer with polyethylene glycol maleate (PEGMA), glycidyl methacrylate (GMA)-iminodiacetic acid (IDA) conjugate (GMA-IDA), and QAS moieties, PEGMA moiety wasincorporated in the copolymer chains to form a hydration layer and bring a resisting effect to resist the bacterial adhesion (step b). The synthesized GMA-IDA grafted on the chains acted as a chelating agent for Ag+ ions so as to endow the surface with an efficient bactericidal activity (step c). The grafted, non-dissolving QAS groups on the chains expressed durably bactericidal and synergisticantibacterial properties by combining with Ag+ ions. To realize the easily convertible wettability of a bacterially anti-adhesive surface, herein, what most deserves to be mentioned is that the superhydrophilic-type, antibacterial, and bacterially anti-adhesive surface (step d) can be apt to convert t o the other superhydrophobic-type one via spray-coating a layer of fluoroalkylsilane (step e), which is superhydrophobic and has a self-cleaning property similar to the lotus effect, thus endowing it with superior antibacterial and bacterially anti-adhesive properties. Bacterial liquid repellency and self-cleaning experiments were performed to assess these two prepared superhydrophilic/ superhydrophobic c onvertible surfaces. More importantly, the controllably antibacterial activity, durably antibacterial, and bacterially anti-adhesive properties were systematically investigated by determining antibacterial and bacterial anti-adhesion rates both before and after the mechanical and chemical resistance