Technological advances in medical equipment have greatly improved the quality of overall healthcare. Currently, the use of synthetic and natural polymers in medical devices has become ubiquitous in examples such as urinary catheters, intravenous injection devices, dialysis equipment, and general utensils such as gauzes and syringes. Despite their wide advantages, these medical tools are prone to bacterial contamination that may be dangerous for patients. Therefore, the production of equipment that present antibacterial properties is an important research topic. Grafting of functional moieties on the surfaces of polymeric materials may be used to modify many substrates with ease to obtain specific characteristics; therefore, in this project, we sought to produce functionalized cotton gauzes with poly(N-vinylimidazole) with potential antibacterial properties. The functionalization was carried out through a “grafting from” procedure in which irradiation with a 60Co gamma-ray source was employed to initiate a radical polymerization of N-vinylimidazole within the surface of the gauzes (Fig. 1). The effect of various synthetic conditions such as solvent nature, monomer concentration, and irradiation dose was evaluated through the determination of grafting yield onto the gauzes. Furthermore, chemical and thermic characteristics were determined through FTIR, DSC, TGA, and pH-sensitivity studies. Additionally, bacterial growth inhibition was evaluated to determine the performance of the materials.

Radiation-grafting of poly(N-vinylimidazole) onto cotton gauzes to produce antibacterial medical devices

2019 Fall National Meeting

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