Investigation of the antiadhesive properties of biomimetic titanium nanostructures in fluidic flow

Within this work, the bacterial adhesion on biomimetic titanium nanostructures is investigated in fluidic flow. The motile, gram-negative bacteria strain Escherichia coli was used for the experiments and was incubated on nanostructured titanium, polished titanium and on the wings of the dragonfly Neuorbasis kaupi. After incubation period different flow velocities have been applied and the reduction of adhered bacteria was determined via fluorescence microscopy. Results show that nanostructured titanium surfaces have the ability to reduce the bacterial contamination as it is for the dragon fly wings used in this study. This behavior can also be predicted by analyzing the bearing area of the nanotopography which describes the actual part of the topography which is in contact to the bacteria.