question: Now-a-days, it is obvious that nanomaterials can play significant role in every sphere of our modern lives On this aspect, use of nanomaterials in developing advanced functional materials or towards enhancement in surface related physical properties including superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic properties is very important both in fundamental and applied research In this regard, most of the researchers agreed that there is a close relationship between superhydrophobicity of material surface with its antimicrobial activity This review briefly highlights the use of some inorganic/organic based nanomaterials such as Ag, Cu, ZnO, TiO2 as inorganic materials and graphene, chitosan nanoparticles as organic materials in making superhydrophobic antimicrobial coatings Based on reported literature, possible mechanisms of antimicrobial activity of the nanomaterials derived superhydrophobic coatings have been discussed It is worthy to note that the coatings with the advancement in self-cleaning and anti-biofouling as well as superhydrophobic and antimicrobial properties are highly potential for enormous applications in biomedical fields including medical textiles, personal protective equipment (PPE), surgical appliances, biodevices and so on In this review, the challenges and future prospect of the nanomaterials based superhydrophobic coatings have also been discussed briefly This mini review may encourage researchers towards development of superhydrophobic and antimicrobial coatings on various substrates like plastics, glasses, cotton fabrics for making PPE to protect the dedicated medical / healthcare personnel from the currently pandemic COVID-19 disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 © 2020 Jana and Seth