Synergistic Antibacterial Surface with Liquid Repellency and Enhanced Photothermal Bactericidal Activity

The presence of microorganisms on biomedical devicesand food packagingsurfaces poses an important threat to human health. Superhydrophobicsurfaces, a powerful tool to combat pathogenic bacterial adhesion,are threatened by their poor robustness. As a supplement, photothermalbactericidal surfaces may be expected to kill adhered bacteria. Usingcopper mesh as a mask, we prepared a superhydrophobic surface witha homogeneous conical array. The surface shows synergistic antibacterialproperties, including a superhydrophobic character against bacterialadhesion and photothermal bactericidal activity. As a result of theexcellent liquid repellency, the surface could highly repel the adherenceof bacteria after immersing in a bacterial suspension for 10 s (95%)and 1 h (57%). Photothermal graphene can easily eliminate most adheredbacteria during the subsequent treatment of near-infrared (NIR) radiation.After a self-cleaning wash, the deactivated bacteria were easily rinsedoff the surface. Furthermore, this antibacterial surface exhibitedan approximately 99.9% resisted bacterial adhesion rate regardlessof planar and various uneven surfaces. The results offer promisingadvancement of an antibacterial surface combining both adhesion resistanceand photothermal bactericidal activity in fighting microbial infections.