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Due to the emergence of wide-spread infectious diseases, there is a heightened need for antimicrobial and/or antifouling coatings that can be used to prevent infection and transmission in a variety of applications, ranging from healthcare devices to public facilities. While antimicrobial coatings kill pathogenic bacteria upon contact with the surface, the antimicrobial function alone often lacks long-term effectiveness due to the accumulation of dead cells and their debris on the surface, thus reducing the performance of the coating over time. Therefore, it is desirable to develop coatings with the dual functions of antimicrobial efficacy and fouling resistance, in which antifouling coatings provide the added benefit of preventing the adhesion of dead cells and debris. Leveraging the outstanding antifouling properties of zwitterionic coatings, we synthesized copolymers with this antimicrobial-antifouling dual function by immobilizing lysozyme, a common antimicrobial enzyme, to the surface of a pyridinium-based zwitterionic copolymer. Specifically, poly(4-vinylpyridine- co -pentaflurophenyl methacrylate- co -divinyl benzene) [P(4VP-PFPMA-DVB)] thin films were synthesized by an all-dry vapor deposition technique, initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition, and derivatized using 1,3-propane sultone to obtain sulfobetaine moieties. Lysozyme, known to hydrolyze polysaccharides in the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria, was immobilized by forming amide bonds with the copolymer coating via nucleophilic substitution of the pentafluorophenyl group. The antifouling and antibacterial performance of the novel lysozyme-zwitterionic coating was tested against Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis and Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa . A reduction in surface adhesion of 87% was achieved for P. aeruginosa , and of 75% for B. subtilis , when compared to a common poly(vinyl chloride) surface. The lysozyme-zwitterionic coating also deactivated 67% of surface-attached Gram-positive bacteria, B. subtilis . This novel dual-function material can produce anti -infection surfaces for medical devices and surgical tools, personal care products, and surfaces in public facilities. 

To reduce the severe health risk and the huge economic impact associated with the fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2, an imidazolium-based zwitterionic polymer was designed, synthesized, and demonstrated to achieve contact deactivation of a human coronavirus under dry ambient conditions that resemble fomite transmission. The zwitterionic polymer further demonstrated excellent antifouling properties, reducing the adhesion of coronavirus and the formation of bacteria biofilms under wetted conditions. The polymer was synthesized using a substrate-independent and solvent-free process, leveraging an all-dry technique named initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD). The broad applicability of this approach was demonstrated by applying the polymer to a range of substrates that are curved and/or with high-aspect-ratio nano/microporous structures, which remained intact after the coating process. The zwitterionic polymer and the synthesis approach reported here present an effective solution to mitigate viral transmission without the need for manual disinfection, reducing the health and economic impact of the ongoing pandemic. 

Initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition (iCVD) is a free-radical polymerization technique used to synthesize functional polymer thin films. In the context of drug delivery, the conformality of iCVD coatings and the variety of functional chemical moieties make them excellent materials for encapsulating pharmaceutics. Poly(4-aminostyrene) (PAS) belongs to a class of functionalizable materials, whose primary amine allows decoration of the delivery vehicles with biomolecules that enable targeted delivery or biocompatibility. Understanding kinetics of PAS polymerization in iCVD is crucial for such deployments because drug release kinetics in thin-film encapsulation have been shown to be determined by the film thickness. Nevertheless, the effects of deposition conditions on PAS growth kinetics have not been studied systematically. To bridge that knowledge gap, we report the kinetics of iCVD polymerization as a function of fractional saturation pressure of the monomer (i.e., P m /P sat ) in a dual-regime fashion, with quadratic dependence under low P m /P sat and linear dependence under high P m /P sat . We uncovered the critical P m /P sat value of 0.2, around which the transition also occurs for many other iCVD monomers. Because existing theoretical models for the iCVD process cannot fully explain the dual-regime polymerization kinetics, we drew inspiration from solution-phase polymerization and proposed updated termination mechanisms that account for the transition between two regimes. The reported model builds upon existing iCVD theories and allows the synthesis of PAS thin films with precisely controlled growth rates, which has the potential to accelerate the deployment of iCVD PAS as a novel biomaterial in controlled and targeted drug delivery with designed pharmacokinetics. 

Conformal coating of nanopores with functional polymer nanolayers is the key to many emerging technologies such as miniature sensors and membranes for advanced molecular separations. While the polymer coatings are often used to introduce functional moieties, their controlled growth under nanoconfinement could serve as a new approach to manipulate the size and shape of coated nanopores, hence, enabling novel functions like molecular separation. However, precise control of coating thickness in the longitudinal direction of a nanopore is limited by the lack of a characterization method to profile coating thickness within the nanoconfined space. Here, we report an experimental approach that combines ion milling (IM) and high-resolution field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) for acquiring an accurate depth profile of ultrathin (∼20 nm or less) coatings synthesized inside nanopores via initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD). The enhanced capability of this approach stems from the excellent x–y resolution achieved by FESEM (i.e., 4.9 nm/pixel), robust depth ( z) control enabled by IM (step size as small as 100 nm with R² = 0.992), and the statistical power afforded by high-throughput sampling (i.e., ∼2000 individual pores). With that capability, we were able to determine with unparalleled accuracy and precision the depth profile of coating thickness and iCVD kinetics along 110-nm-diameter nanopores. That allowed us to uncover an unexpected coating depth profile featuring a maximum rate of polymerization at ∼250 nm underneath the top surface, i.e., down the pores, which we termed “necking.” The necking phenomenon deviates considerably from the conventionally assumed monotonous decrease in thickness along the longitudinal direction into a nanopore, as predicted by the diffusion-limited kinetics model of free radical polymerization. An initiator-centric collision model was then developed, which suggests that under the experimental conditions, the confinement imposed by the nanopores may lead to local amplification of the effective free radical concentration at z ≤ 100 nm and attenuation at z ≥ 500 nm, thus contributing to the observed necking phenomenon. The ion-milling-enabled depth profiling of ultrathin coatings inside nanopores, along with the initiator-mediated coating thickness control in the z-direction, may serve to enhance the performance of size-exclusion filtration membranes and even provide more flexible control of nanopore shape in the z dimension.