ABSTRACT The attachment of marine fouling organisms is harmful to any marine structure such as ship hulls, fishing nets, jetties and platforms. Marine antifouling coating is still the widely commercial used solution for marine antifouling in shipping industry. It is necessary to evaluate the antimicrobial and antifouling performances of marine antifouling coating before formal use. Assessment methods of antimicrobial and antifouling performances are investigated in this study. Based on the antifouling mechanism, flat colony counting test, crystal violet staining test, diatoms static fouling test and diatoms dynamic fouling test are chosen for the laboratory test. With reference to some standards on shallow submerging test for marine antifouling panel, the deficiencies of the current evaluation method are discussed and the corresponding solution is then proposed. The appropriate proportion of the evaluation scale is divided according to the different influences on the antifouling property of the biofouling, and the monomer fouling is selected as the main evaluation scale. A novel calculation method of Fouling Resistance can be proposed and compared with ASTM and SAC standard. An effective assessment system for antimicrobial and antifouling performance of marine antifouling coating is proposed and validated by cases.
INTRODICTION Biofouling describes the settlement and the accumulation of marine organisms, such as bacteria, diatom, barnacle and oyster, on the structures immersed in seawater which can cause a variety of problems. On ship hull, it can increase the hydrodynamic drag, lower the maneuverability of the vessel and increase the fuel consumption. This causes increased costs within the shipping industry through the increased use of manpower, fuel, material and dry dock time (Muller, Wang, Proksch, Perry, Osinga, Garderes, and Schroder, 2013; Yebra, Kiil, and Dam-Johansen, 2004). Many studies have been carried out around biofouling, and there are various antifouling methods and antifouling patents, but antifouling coating is the most widely used antifouling method (Amara, Miled, Slama, and Ladhari, 2018; Chambers, Stokes, Walsh, and Wood, 2006).