Original antifouling strategy: Polypropylene films modified with chitosan-coated silver nanoparticles

GIULIANA MOSCONI; MA. FERNANDA STRAGLIOTTO; WALTER SLENK; LAURA VALENTI; CARLA GIACOMELLI; MIRIAM STRUMIA; CESAR GOMEZ

Journal Applied Polymer Science

WILEY ON LINE LIBRARY

Lugar: Cleveland; Año: 2019 vol. 136

0021-8995

new coating strategy of polypropylene (PP) films with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is proposed to obtain surfaces withantifouling properties. As a first step, the photograft polymerization is used to produce polyacrylic acid-grafted PP (PAA-grafted PP)films. A green AgNP synthesis is used by thermal reduction of AgNO3 with amino groups of chitosan (CS), which controls ion diffusion andstabilizes nanoparticles. AgNP/CS complexes are adsorbed on PAA-grafted PP by electrostatic interactions, yielding AgNP/CS-coated PP films.These films show an excellent antimicrobial activity, even for AgNP contents as low as 0.08 wt %, reducing more than 4 log units in the viableStaphylococcus aureus concentration or inducing Escherichia coli death. This trend is consistent with an adequate amount of small AgNPadsorbed in an organized manner within a thin surface layer. Therefore, the antimicrobial activity of this film seems to be more than promising,used as an active surface for a wide range of appli