Synthesis, characterization and antibacterial activity studies of poly-{styrene-acrylic acid} with silver nanoparticles

✍ Scribed by Marcos Marques da Silva Paula; César Vitório Franco; Mario César Baldin; Larissa Rodrigues; Tatiana Barichello; Geovana Dagostim Savi; Luiz Felipe Bellato; Márcio Antônio Fiori; Luciano da Silva

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 402 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0928-4931
• DOI: 10.1016/j.msec.2008.11.017

✦ Synopsis

This work reports the preparation and characterization of copolymer poly-{styrene-acrylic acid} with monomeric ratio of styrene/acrylic acid of 9:1 using benzoyl peroxide as initiator and furthermore filled with nanosilver (25 ppm and 50 ppm) in water/acetone (1:40 v/v). The nanosilver emulsion was obtained from chemical reduction using NaBH 4 as reducing agent and sodium citrate as the stabilizer. The preparation of nanosilver emulsion was monitored by the appearance of a Plasmon Resonant Absorption band in a UVvisible spectrophotometer and the particles sizes were observed through TEM. Microbiological studies were performed to investigate the antimicrobial activity of this new material against the microorganisms Escherichia coli (ATCC-25922) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC-6538), used as reference strains. The antimicrobial activity of the poly-{styrene-acrylic acid} filled with nanosilver was confirmed by the presence of an inhibition halo of the bacterial growth in seeded culture media, but was not found with the poly (styrene-acrylic acid) alone. The present work suggests that silver ions are released from the polymeric matrix to the culture media and have the ability to tune the Ag + ions released by controlling the amount of Ag nanoparticles embedded in the composite.