Journal of Environmental Biology

Evaluation of antifouling activity of eight commercially available organic chemicals against the early foulers marine bacteria and Ulva spores

Hari Datta Bhattarai, Babita Paudel, Nam-Sik Park, Kwang Soo Lee and Hyun-Woung Shin*

*hwshin@sch.ac.kr

Department of Marine Biotechnology, Soonchunhyang University, Asan City-336 745, South Korea

(Received: October 24, 2005 ; Revised received: April 10, 2006 ; Accepted: July 15, 2006)

Abstract: Environmental impacts caused by tin and copper based commercial antifouling (AF) paints were proved to be detrimental to aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, a search of environmental friendly AF compounds to be used in marine paint to protect the surface of maritime developmental structures from the unwanted biofouling is a burning issue of the present time. Commercially available eight organic chemicals- allyl isothiocyanate, b-myrecene, cis-3-hexenyl acetate, citral, ethyl heptanoate, eugenol, methyl caproate, and octyl alcohol were evaluated for AF activities using both laboratory and field assays. The test chemicals were found to repel the target motile marine bacteria- Alteromonas marina, Bacillus atrophaeus, Roseobacter gallaeciensis and Shewanella oneidensis and motile spores of the green alga, Ulva pertusa. The bacterial and Ulva spore repulsion activities of the test chemicals were measured by chemotaxis and agar diffusion methods respectively. Interestingly, these test chemicals were less toxic to the test fouling species. The toxicity of the test chemicals was measured by using antibiotic assay disks against the bacteria and motility test against Ulva spores.  Moreover, in field assay, all test chemicals showed a perfect performance of AF activity showing no fouling during the experimental period of one year. Such results and commercial as well as technical feasibility of the test chemicals firmly showed the possibility of using as alternatives of the existing toxic AF agents.

Key words:   Antibiotic, Biofouling, Chemotaxis, Ulva pertusa, Fouling resistance

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