A Facile Strategy to Construct Anti-Swelling, Antibacterial and Antifogging Coatings for Protection of Medical Goggles.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional medical goggles are not only easy to attach bacteria and viruses in long-term exposure, but also easy to fogged up, which increases the risk of infection and affects productivity. Bacterial adhesion and fog can be significantly inhibited through the hydrogel coatings, owing to their super hydrophilic properties. But on the one hand, hydrophilic hydrogel coatings are easy to absorb water and swell in wet environment, resulting in reduced mechanical properties, even peeling off. On the other hand, the hydrogel coatings do not have intrinsic antibacterial properties, which still poses a potential risk of bacterial transmission. Herein, an anti-swelling and antibacterial hydrogel coating is synthesized by 2-Hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), acrylamide (AM), dimethylaminoethyl acrylate bromoethane (IL-Br), and Poly(sodium-p-styrenesulfonate) (PSS). Due to the self-driven entropy reduction effect of polycation (IL-Br) and polyanion (PSS), an ion cross-linking network is formed, which endows the hydrogel coating with excellent anti-swelling performance. Moreover, because of the synergistic effect of highly hydrated surfaces and the active bactericidal effect from quaternary ammonium cations, the hydrogel coating exhibits outstanding antibacterial, anti-protein and antifogging performances. This work develops a facile strategy to fabricate anti-swelling, antifouling and antifogging hydrogel coatings for protection of medical goggles, and also for biomedical and marine antifouling fields. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.