“…According to these criteria, a number of anti-biofouling polymers have been developed that effectively prevent the adhesion of proteins, cells, and bacteria. These include hydrophilic polymers ( Epstein et al, 2012 ; Keefe et al, 2012 ; Chen et al, 2015a ; Mohan et al, 2015 ; Zhu et al, 2015 ; Guo et al, 2019 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ), e.g., PEG, PEGylated polymers, PHEMA, polysaccharides, and zwitterionic polymers ( Carr et al, 2011 ; Chen et al, 2012 ; Sin et al, 2014 ; He et al, 2016 ; Kang et al, 2016 ; Wang et al, 2018 ; He et al, 2019 ; Liu et al, 2020c ; Erathodiyil et al, 2020 ; Su et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2021a ; Zhang et al, 2021b ; Zhou et al, 2021 ), e.g., PSBMA, PCBMA, and PCBAA. Although these polymers differ in their structures and chemistry, they are all able to bind strongly to water, resulting in the presence of a layer of water that reduces interaction and attachment between the surface and the foulant.…”