Water-Based Scalable Methods for Self-Cleaning Antibacterial ZnO-Nanostructured Surfaces

[Image: see text] Bacterial colonization poses significant health risks, such as infestation of surfaces in biomedical applications and clean water unavailability. If maintaining the surrounding water clean is a target, developing surfaces with strong bactericidal action, which is facilitated by bacterial access to the surface and mixing, can be a solution. On the other hand, if sustenance of a surface free of bacteria is the goal, developing surfaces with ultralow bacterial adhesion often suffices. Here we report a facile, scalable, and environmentally benign strategy that delivers customized surfaces for these challenges. For bactericidal action, nanostructures of inherently antibacterial ZnO, through simple immersion of zinc in hot water, are fabricated. The resulting nanostructured surface exhibits extreme bactericidal effectiveness (9250 cells cm(–2) h(–1)) that eliminates bacteria in direct contact and also remotely through the action of reactive oxygen species. Remarkably, the remote bactericidal action is achieved without the need for any illumination, otherwise required in conventional approaches. As a result, ZnO nanostructures yield outstanding water disinfection of >99.98%, in the dark, by inactivating the bacteria within 3 h. Moreover, Zn(2+) released to the aqueous medium from the nanostructured ZnO surface have a concentration of 0.73 ± 0.15 ppm, markedly below the legal limit for safe drinking water (5–6 ppm). The same nanostructures, when hydrophobized (through a water-based or fluorine-free spray process), exhibit strong bacterial repulsion, thus substantially reducing bacterial adhesion. Such environmentally benign and scalable methods showcase pathways toward inhibiting surface bacterial colonization.