A fully aqueous sustainable process for strongly adhering antimicrobial coatings on stainless steel

In order to provide conducting surfaces with antibacterial properties, the electrografting of acrylate has been combined with the layer-by-layer deposition of polyelectrolytes. The challenges addressed by this strategy are (i) to insure the adhesion of the biocidal coating to the conducting surface and (ii) to avoid the use of organic solvents in the coating process. The electrografting process has been implemented in water and allows imparting strong adhesion of an anchoring polycationic layer, used in a second step for growing a chitosan-based bactericidal coating by layer-by-layer deposition. This novel process based on readily available precursors allows the coating from aqueous media and makes the coating technology quite sustainable.