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Recent developments in functionalization of antibacterial polymer coatings

Polymer materials with different metals on their surface and coatings achieve active antimicrobial properties. Development of such materials can be time and money consuming task with unpredictable result. In many cases mathematical modeling and acquisition of sophisticated statistical programs helps with finding the optimal result. This presentation therefore shows our results in which we modified the process parameters to achieve excellent antimicrobial properties of active surface coatings that contained nanoparticles of metals and metal oxides. In order to study the interaction between parameters during polymer functionalization by sol gel methodology, response surface methodology was applied. The next step included characterization of metals in antimicrobial coatings (in a form of nanoparticles), for which a new analytical procedure was developed. It consisted of coupling chromatographic separation and identification, with FTIR spectroscopy, ICP-OES methodology, and SEM-EDX microscopy techniques. Materials were lastly investigated with regard to their antimicrobial potency and the obtained results have shown that by our methodology, polymer surface can be efficiently activated and functionalized into powerful antibacterial materials. Therefore this newly developed functionalized coatings can be applied due to their powerful activity against microorganisms. It is known that infections with microorganisms resistant to antibiotics have a world frequency ranging from 20 to 50 cases per 100, 000 inhabitants per year. Moreover, 10% to 30% of such infections end with a deadly outcome. It can be calculated that this number is greater than the sum of the deaths caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis together. Therefore, it is needed to develop materials with functional surfaces that can be applied in medical, sport, or military purposes. And sophisticated mathematical modeling is a precious and unavoidable step needed in order to achieve satisfying result.

antimicrobial polymers, nanoparticles, development

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