Nafion coated stainless steel for anti-biofilm application

•Stainless steel discs were coated by 1% Nafion which terminated by sulfonic groups.•The roughness of stainless discs before and after coated with 1% Nafion did not change much.•The hydrophobic of the discs increased after coated with Nafion.•Stainless steel discs coated with 1% Nafion can reduce E. coli attachment obviously.

Biofilms can adhere to most surfaces and have caused a wide range of problems in various industrial processes as well as daily life activities. In this work, the anti-biofilm ability of Nafion-coated stainless steel surface was investigated and our results showed that stainless steel discs coated with 1% Nafion can significantly reduce E. coli adhesion. Nafion has a large amount of negatively charged sulphonate groups, and the findings of this study suggest that the negative surface charge can greatly reduce bacterial adhesion through increasing the electrostatic repulsion between negatively charged bacterial cells and Nafion coated stainless steel surface. The roughness of coated and uncoated stainless steel discs made no significant differences while the hydrophobic of the discs increased after coated with Nafion.

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