A Short Review of Laboratory and Field Testing of Environmentally Benign Antifouling Coatings

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:"times="" roman";="" color:black;mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:="" ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">Unlike traditional biocide-based antifouling coatings, emerging antifouling concepts combining environmentally benign materials and biomimetic concepts may require new antifouling assay methods for evaluating activity before the transition from lab to dynamic field test environment. As a result, many new antifouling assays have been introduced in the past few years, each designed to measure specific parameters. However, it is important to keep in mind that emerging novel antifouling systems leverage on synergism between more than one antifouling mechanisms of action. Thus, to understand antifouling activity, it is necessary to evaluate them in different laboratory and natural field environment conditions as polymers may behave differently in static controlled environment and dynamic conditions of the natural marine environment. For field tests, new ways to elucidate performance in smaller scale experiments before transition to larger panel performance tests are needed. In this paper, we discuss the emerging challenges for antifouling testing for R&D.</span>