Plasma pre-treatment and TiO2 coating of PMMA for the improvement of antibacterial properties

✍ Scribed by Wenyue Su; Shichao Wang; Xuxu Wang; Xianzhi Fu; Jingning Weng

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 839 KB
• Volume: 205
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0257-8972
• DOI: 10.1016/j.surfcoat.2010.07.013

✦ Synopsis

Natural light sterilization

The antibacterial properties of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) are enhanced by coating with TiO 2 films. The transparent TiO 2 films on plasma-treated PMMA are prepared by sol-gel dip coating. The modified surfaces are characterized by XRD, AFM, ATR-FTIR, SEM, UV-vis spectroscopy, and contact angle measurements. Finally, the antibacterial properties are evaluated using the method of plate-counting of Staphylococcus aureus (gram positive) and Escherichia coli (gram negative). It is found that the anatase-TiO 2 film is well-conglutinated on PMMA surface with an average crystallite size of ca. 4 nm. The as-prepared TiO 2 /PMMA exhibits excellent photoinduced antibacterial effect for the sterilization of bacteria under indoor natural light, and about 100% of both bacteria are inactivated within 2 h illumation. Compared to PMMA without any treatment, the superior anti-adhesion capability of the TiO 2 /PMMA surface is also demonstrated.