Integration of Antifouling and Anti-Cavitation Coatings on Propellers: A Review
Jingying Zhang, Weihua Qin, Wenrui Chen, Zenghui Feng, Dongheng Wu, Lanxuan Liu, Yang Wang
Abstract
The performance of an entire ship is increasingly impacted by propellers, which are the essential components of a ship’s propulsion system that have growing significance in a variety of aspects. Consequently, it has been a hot research topic and a challenge to develop high-performance antifouling and anti-cavitation coatings due to the issue of marine biofouling and cavitation faced by propellers in high-intensity service. While there is an overwhelming number of publications on antifouling and anti-cavitation coatings, a limited number of papers focus on integrated protective coatings on propellers. In this paper, we evaluated the development of antifouling and anti-cavitation coatings for ship propellers in the marine environment as well as their current status of research. These coatings include self-polishing antifouling coatings, fouling-releasing antifouling coatings, and biomimetic antifouling coatings for static seawater anti-biofouling, as well as anti-cavitation organic coatings and anti-cavitation inorganic coatings for dynamic seawater anti-cavitation. This review also focuses both on the domestic and international research progress status of integrated antifouling and anti-cavitation coatings for propellers. It also provides research directions for the future development of integrated antifouling and anti-cavitation coatings on propellers.