Seaweed has never needed antifouling paint.
For millions of years, seaweed has remained completely free of the barnacles, algae and bacteria that plague every other submerged surface. It doesn’t kill these organisms — it disrupts their ability to communicate. We found the mechanism. Now we’re putting it in a coating.
The solution today is poisoning the ocean
When a ship enters the water, the clock starts immediately. Within hours, the first bacteria attach to the hull and begin forming a biofilm. Within days, algae follow. Within weeks, barnacles, mussels and tube worms colonise the surface — creating a thick, rough layer that dramatically increases drag and fuel consumption. This process is called biofouling, and it costs the shipping industry an estimated $150 billion a year.
Today the industry’s answer has been toxic antifouling paint. It works by continuously leaching biocides into the surrounding water — and those chemicals don’t stay on the hull. Today, in every harbour and port in the world, copper and other biocides are accumulating in the seabed sediment directly beneath docked vessels. They are entering the food chain through mussels, oysters and crustaceans. They are disrupting the hormonal and reproductive systems of fish and marine invertebrates and can end up in humans. This is not a future risk. It is the standard solution, used on the majority of the world’s commercial fleet, right now
The key is not to remove growth — but to prevent it from ever establishing.
By copying nature’s own antifouling strategies, we can fundamentally rethink how marine surfaces are protected. Natural marine surfaces operate through highly refined control of surface chemistry and microstructure. These systems regulate how proteins, bacteria, and larger organisms interact at the interface — influencing adhesion at its earliest stages.
This represents a fundamentally different paradigm from conventional antifouling approaches. Rather than reacting to growth after it occurs, the focus shifts to controlling the initial conditions that determine whether attachment is possible at all.
Translating these principles into engineered materials opens the possibility for antifouling solutions that are both effective and inherently compatible with marine environments.