Dear Colleagues,

Antifouling coatings play vital roles in several industries for the prevention and/or control of biofouling attachments and growth on submerged surfaces. Undesired bio-attachments have been associated with serious economic and environmental consequences in both stationary and non-stationary (mobile) systems, including shipping, aquaculture (e.g., cages), and other onshore and offshore activities (e.g., oil sea platforms, wind turbine sea platforms, desalination and wastewater treatment units, pipelines, water valves, filters, and sensors). Bio-attachments can promote premature substrate corrosion, promoted by microbially influenced corrosion (MIC), system clogging, drag friction, and fluids contamination, with costly maintenance and retrofitting being necessary as a result.

Throughout the history of protective coatings, several antifouling strategies have been utilized. The most revolutionary generation of coatings was marked by the appearance of tributyltin (TBT)-release-based antifouling coatings in the marine industry in the 1960s. These were useful due to their high efficacy and broad-spectrum toxic action, providing huge operational savings. However, this approach was shortly abandoned due to its harmful effects on the marine ecosystem, and was banned in 2008. Since then, efforts have been made to replace this toxic agent and/or its derivatives. Most conventional antifouling strategies (e.g., soluble polymeric matrices, controlled depletion polymer coatings (CDPs), and self-polishing tin-free copolymer coatings (TF-SPC)) act through controlled-release mechanisms of toxic agents or booster biocides. While these are considered to be less toxic to the aquatic environment, global environmental concern has led to severe restrictions on their use. Alternative strategies, mostly inspired by the observation of natural chemical–physical antifouling defense mechanisms, have been emerging, including foul-release systems, bio-passive polymeric coatings, and microtopography-modified polymers. However, these strategies have not yet accomplished significant advantaged compared with the TBT generation of coatings, or they are costly.  

Research is required to provide new strategies for more efficient, sustainable, environmentally friendly coating solutions, as well as to overcome major challenges, such as the complexity of the biofouling process and its relationships with global warming. Ineffective solutions have the potential to inflict serious harm to the marine ecosystem.

This Special Issue of Coatings, “Environmentally Friendly Marine Coatings for biofouling control and Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion Inhibition”, will cover the most recent and promising advances in research surrounding marine coatings for the control of biofouling and for inhibiting microbiologically influenced corrosion.

The main topics that this Special Issue of Coatings will cover include the following:

• Foul-releasing coatings;
• Antifouling self-healing coatings;
• Non-releasing biocidal coatings;
• Bio-passive-based polymeric coatings (zwitterionic, self-assembled monolayer approaches);
• Bioinspired coatings (incorporating natural and/or new synthesized biomimetic based agents, micro-topographically modified coatings);
• Hybrid and/or multifunctional coatings (amphiphilic/stimuli-responsive systems);
• Sewer concrete coatings.

Dr. Elisabete Ribeiro Silva
Dr. Guangming Jiang
Guest Editors

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• antifouling coatings
• polymer coatings
• marine coatings
• bioinspired coatings
• hybrid/multifunctional coatings