Bacterially induced degradation of aqueous solutions of poly(l-lysine)-graft-poly(ethylene glycol) and poly(l-lysine)-graft-dextran: consequences for their lubrication properties
✍ Scribed by Nicolas Argibay; Chiara Perrino; Markus Rimann; Seunghwan Lee; Nicholas D. Spencer
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 145 KB
- Volume
- 21
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0954-0075
- DOI
- 10.1002/ls.99
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Experimental data are presented comparing the degradation in the lubrication behaviour of aqueous solutions of the brush copolymers poly(l‐lysine)‐graft‐poly(ethylene glycol) (PLL‐g‐PEG) and poly(l‐lysine)‐graft‐dextran (PLL‐g‐dex) when aged after exposure to bacterial contamination. While PLL‐g‐PEG solutions appear to be relatively unaffected by bacteria after a storage period of as much as 8 weeks, PLL‐g‐dex solutions exposed to bacteria during preparation lead to as much as a twofold increase in friction coefficient, when used as a lubricant in tribological tests, over an 8 week period when compared to reference data from freshly prepared and tested samples. Solutions prepared under sterile conditions and aged for up to 8 weeks do not appear to be degraded. Further experiments implementing the anti‐bacterial agent sodium azide effectively prevented bacterial colonization and degradation in lubrication behaviour. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.