The use and overuse of antibiotics has increased the prevalence of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. The production of new antimicrobials has also decreased as well. Developing novel antibacterials and/or antiseptics could decrease infection and thus benefit infected patients and decrease mortality rates. Amphiphilic structures produced in our lab generally have multiple hydrophobic tails and hydrophilic head groups. This summer, we prepared several novel tris-cationic compounds, which are a modification of amphiphiles made the previous summer. Each new compound has three pendant alcohol groups, allowing it to be incorporated into polyurethane polymers. The amphiphiles previously created include two twelve-carbon hydrophobic tails and three head groups, one of which has an alcohol group. The modification is replacing all the amphiphile tails with alcohol groups attached to each cationic head group. Compounds used in this synthesis are 4-pyridine propanol, 3-pyridine propanol and 1,3,5-tris(bromomethyl)benzene. After successfully synthesizing these compounds, we incorporated them into polyurethane polymers. Ongoing experiments on these polymers include NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, and GPC. Antibacterial studies were conducted to determine the effectiveness of amphiphilic polymers, as well as the triscationic monomers. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation-Research Experience for Undergraduates grant number CHE-1461175 and James Madison University for funding and supporting this research.

Synthesis of antibacterial polymers

255th National Meeting (2018)

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