Antifouling and Biofilm-Resistant Photopolymer Surfaces: Hydration Layers, Topography, Leaching and Durability

An antifouling claim for a printed photopolymer cannot be established by a clean initial surface, a short planktonic kill test or one percentage reduction. Protein and organic conditioning, initial cell attachment, growth, extracellular-matrix development and mature biofilm are different stages. Hydration layers, surface charge, designed topography, contact-active chemistry, leaching agents and photocatalytic surfaces act by different mechanisms and require different controls. This review defines a qualification architecture for antifouling and biofilm-resistant photopolymer surfaces. It requires the printed and post-cured state, conditioning medium, organism or consortium, exposure time and endpoint to be declared; separates non-adhesive, fouling-release, contact-killing, leaching and photocatalytic functions; and repeats biological assessment after cleaning, abrasion, sterilisation or ageing. Direct evidence from vat-printed dental resins and photocurable PEGDA composites is combined with bounded adjacent evidence from zwitterionic coatings, combinatorial topographies, degradable photocurable coatings and microstructured photocatalytic surfaces. The framework joins surface-state, biological, release and cytocompatibility evidence without allowing one layer to substitute for another. No commercial recipe, universal graft density, topographic pitch, efficacy threshold, cleaning interval or service lifetime is established.