Recent developments in electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of antibacterial coatings for biomedical applications- A review

Bacterial infections are one of the leading causes for long-term failure of medical implants, associated with hospitalization, costly revision surgeries, increased morbidity and even mortality. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) appears as a suitable coating technology to confer antibacterial efficacy to implant surfaces without changing the properties of the constituent (or base) material. Typical antibacterial coatings by EPD rely on bactericidal (release-killing, contact-killing and stimuli responsive-killing) and bacteriostatic (anti-adhesive) approaches. The current review paper presents novel strategies to prevent bacterial infections by means of EPD focusing on relevant published studies in the last two years and provides a critical reflection on future prospects of EPD-based biomedical coatings.