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Note:
Biotechnology Congress 2018 & Emerging Materials 2018
Biomedical Research
|
ISSN: 0976-1683
|
Volume 29
S e p t e m b e r 0 6 - 0 7 , 2 0 1 8 | B a n g k o k , T h a i l a n d
allied
academies
Joint Event on
EMERGING MATERIALS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
BIOTECHNOLOGY
&
Annual Congress on
Global Congress on
Tanujjal Bora et al., Biomed Res 2018, Volume 29 | DOI: 10.4066/biomedicalresearch-C4-010
PHOTOCATALYTIC ANTIBIOFOULING
NANOCOATING FOR MARINE AND FRESH
WATER ENVIRONMENTS
Tanujjal Bora, Nitsuphang Kongsa, Oleg Shipin
and
Gabor L
Hornyak
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
B
iofoulingisanaturalprocessthatinvolvesaccumulationofmicroorganisms,
plants, algae, or animals on a surface that is in contact with an aqueous
environment. Biofouling is typically a multistage process, which usually
starts with organic or molecular fouling – accumulation of macromolecules,
like proteins and carbohydrates, from water, which further leads to the
attachment of microbial cells. Although the process is natural, it has plagued
many industrial sectors, such as shipping industry, aquaculture, desalination
and even oil-refineries by resulting in surface corrosion costing them billions
of dollars yearly to overcome it. There have been numerous efforts to prevent
biofouling that have been made with varying success rates till date. These
typically includes protecting the surface with wax type materials, standard
paints, chemical antifouling coatings as well as introduction of toxic biocides
such as tributyltin (TBT) containing compounds as surface coating. When the
introduction of toxic biocides helped the industries to prevent the biofouling
up to certain degree, at the same time it has started to affect the aquatic
ecosystem as well making the use of biocides an environmentally serious
issue. In our research we are addressing this issue by developing environment
friendly antibiofouling coatings based on biocompatible photocatalytic
nanomaterials. Our approach is simple and can be easily up-scaled. Using
metal oxides, such as zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2), we have
developed nanoscale coatings and tested their antibiofouling properties in
both marine and fresh water environment. Compared to the commercially
available copper based antifouling paints, our coatings have shown better
antibiofouling properties and more durability. Experiments conducted in real
world suggest that these photocatalytically active nanocoatings can be a
potential alternative to the commonly used toxic antibiofouling paints for the
prevention of biofouling in aquatic environment.
Tanujjal Bora is a Faculty in Nanotechnology field
in Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. He has
completed his doctoral degree in Nanotechnology in
2012 from AIT, Thailand and then joined the Chair in
Nanotechnology Research Group at Sultan Qaboos
University, Oman as a post-doctoral Researcher. His
major research interest is on nano-engineered materi-
als for solar energy harvesting and environmental ap-
plications. He has more than 30 international journal
publications with citations over 750 and h-index of 15.
tbora@ait.ac.thBIOGRAPHY