Super-hydrophobic surface (SHS), which traps micro/nano-scale gas bubbles on solid walls, has been reported to greatly reduce bacterial adhesion and biofouling. However, it is unclear whether and how the trapped gas bubbles reduce the bacterial adhesion. In this work, we examined the role of the trapped gas on the bacterial adhesion by measuring the spatial distributions of attached bacteria on SHS using scanning electron microscopy. Full article is available here.

This work is funded by UMass Dartmouth’s Marine and Undersea Technology (MUST) Research Program funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Grant No. N00014-20-1-2170. The Office of Technology Commercialization & Ventures (OTCV) Technology Development Fund from University of Massachusetts’s President’s Office.