Antibacterial Materials for Coatings and General Applications: Pyridinium Polymers and Silver Bromide Based Nanocomposites

摘要

Microbial adhesion to surfaces followed by cell growth and colonization results in a variety of detrimental consequences: failure of biomedical devices like catheters, prosthetics, and implants; nosocomial infections in hospitals; contamination of processed food products; bio-fouling of materials. Hence, there is a significant interest in the development of antimicrobial coatings for applications in health and biomedical device industry, food industry and personal hygiene industry. Among the different types of antimicrobial materials, membrane disrupting cationic polymers' and silver ion2 releasing materials are of special interest due to their easy synthesis and broad-spectrum activity towards many different microbes. Herein we describe the synthesis and structure-antibacterial activity of a number of pyridinium based cationic polymers. We also describe an easy method of incorporating silver bromide nanoparticles into these cationic polymers to yield antibacterial nanocomposites with potent and long lasting activity towards both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The materials form durable coatings on any oxide (metal, ceramic, glass) surface and kill surface borne, air borne and water borne bacteria. Surfaces coated with these AgBr composites resist biofilm formation. These composites are different from other silver containing antibacterial materials both in the ease of synthesis and in the use of a silver salt nanoparticle instead of elemental silver or complex silver compounds. These composites are potentially useful as antimicrobial coatings in a wide variety of biomedical and general use applications.