OFI SF7 Designing safer marine coatings for biofouling prevention: addressing reversible and irreversible damages with new materials

高性能、更安全的替代涂料可以延长船舶和其他工程系统的使用寿命，提高水中移动时的能源效率。生物污染是一种影响海洋物质性能和寿命的过程，并增加了将破坏性入侵物种转移到新的沿海生态系统的可能性。目前最先进的防污材料往往会将铜等有害物质浸出到水道中，破坏生物多样性。许多有前途的生物灵感和基于自然的解决方案，如鲨鱼皮（Sharklet AF），受lotus leaf启发的表面，氨基聚烯烃附着自修复抗污染物质到海洋表面（A2O），从海带中提取的功能化海藻酸盐生物塑料（Bioform）和受光系统II化学启发的技术（XlynX），存在于加拿大和全球市场和创业空间。然而，在动态的、现实的条件下测试这些创新涂层的负担得起的方法，也提供了足够的控制来进行有意义的材料之间的比较，因此在科学严格的原则下进行基础设计创新是有限的。特别是，比海洋部署更快、吞吐量更高的实验室测试很少。通过更好的、受自然启发的涂层来共同缓解生物污染和表面降解，是创造新材料和新方法的综合设计机会。在这个Seed项目中，我们将与A2O合作开发基于实验室的分析，允许高通量模拟类似海洋的环境，以评估新材料在动态条件下的抗生物污染性能。Seed项目的重点将是方法开发，目标是将这些方法应用于与A2O或加拿大海洋工业的其他合作伙伴共同设计和制造的新材料，并进行更大规模的长期合作。

High-performance, safer alternative coatings can increase longevity, energy efficiency when moving through water, and duty cycle of marine vessels and other deployed engineered systems. Biofouling is a processes that impacts performance and longevity of marine materials and increases likelihood of transporting damaging invasive species into new coastal ecosystems. Current state-of-the art antifouling materials tend to leach hazardous substances such as copper into waterways, damaging biodiversity. Many promising bioinspired and nature-based solutions, such asshark skin (Sharklet AF), surfaces inspired by the lotus leaf, aminopolyolefins to attach self-healing antifoulants tomarine surfaces (A2O), functionalized alginate bioplastics from kelp (Bioform) and technologies inspired by the chemistry of Photosystem II (XlynX), exist in the Canadian and global markets and startup space. However, affordable methods for testing these innovative coatings under dynamic, realistic conditions that also provide enough control to make meaningful comparisons between materials and therefore base design innovations in scientifically rigorous principles are limited. In particular, lab-based tests that are faster and higher throughput than ocean deployments are scarce. Co-mitigation of biofouling and surface degradation through better, nature-inspired coatings is anintegrated design opportunity for the creation of new materials and new methods.In this Seed project we will partner with A2O to develop laboratory-based assays that allow high-throughput simulation of ocean-like environments to assess anti-biofouling properties of new materials under dynamic conditions. The focus of this Seed project will be methods development, with the goal of a larger, long-term collaboration applying these methods to new materials that are co-designed and fabricated with A2O or other partners in the Canadian marine industry.