Robust Chiral Metal-Organic Framework Coatings for Self-Activating and Sustainable Biofouling Mitigation

摘要

Surface coatings designed to mitigate pervasive biofouling herald a new era of surface protection in complex biological environments. However, existing strategies are plagued by persistent and recurrent biofilm attachment, desp ite the use of bactericidal agents. Herein, we develop a chiral metal -organic framework (MOF) - based coating with conformal microstructures to enable a new anti -biofouling mode that involves spontaneous biofilm disassembly followed by bacterial eradication. A facile and universal metal -polyphenol network (MPN) is designed to robustly anchor the MOF nanoarmor of biocidal Cu 2+ ions and anti -biofilm D-amino acid ligands to a variety of substrates across different material categories and surface topologies. Incorporating a diverse array of chiral amino acids endows the resultant coatings with widespread signals for biofilm dispersal, facilitating copper -catalyzed chemodynamic reactions and inherent mechano -bactericidal activities. This synergistic mechanism yields unprecedented anti -biofouling efficacy elucidated by RNA -sequencing transcriptomics analysis, enhancing broad-spectrum antibacterial activities, preventing biofilm formation, and destroying mature biofilms. Additionally, the chelation -directed amorphous/crystalline coatings can activate photoluminescent properties to inhibit the settlement of microalgae biofilms. This study provides a distinctive perspective on chirality-enhanced antimicrobial behaviors and pioneers a rational pathway toward developing next-generation anti-biofouling coatings for diverse applications.