Fouling-release Property of Water-filled Porous Elastomers

Since the fouling-releasing ability of silicone elastomers increased as their modulus decreases, we designed and prepared composites with embedded tiny NaCl crytals that were soluble after their immersion in water, resulting in water-filled porous elastomers. The scanning electron microscope images confirmed such a designed water-filling porous structure. The existence of many micro-drops of water in these specially designed elastomers decreased the shear storage modulus and increased the loss factors. The decrease of shear modulus plays a leading role here and is directly related to a lower critical peeling-off stress of apseudo-barnacle on them. Therefore, such a novel preparation with cheap salts instead of an expensive silicone provides a better way to make fouling-release paints with a lower modulus, a lower critical peeling-off stress and a better fouling-release property without a significant decrease of the cross-linking density.