Synthesis, structural characterization, antifouling and antibacterial properties of polypyridinium salt coated silica nanoparticles

Abstract

Four bare silica particle carriers with different particle sizes and functional organic-inorganic silica particles (SiO₂-2/P4VP-psl) “grafted” by P4VP-psl (polypyridinium salt) were selected to test their antibacterial and antifouling activities. The relationships between particle sizes, grafting degrees of pyridinium salt unit and their antibacterial ability were investigated by using Escherichia coli (E. coli) ATTC25922 as model bacterium and calculated by the colony count method. The results showed that silica particle sizes did not work in its antibacterial and antifouling activities. Functional SiO₂-2/P4VP-psl possessed both the good antibacterial, antifouling activities of zwitterionic polymers, and the stability advantage of inorganic particle, which was environmental friendly disinfection materials in purifying water. The antibacterial rate was almost 100%. The stability of SiO₂-2/P4VP-psl in bovine serum albumin solutions was very excellent with the unchanged particle size for 60 h. Moreover, the higher the grafting degree of pyridinium salt unit was, the stronger the sterilizing ability of SiO₂-2/P4VP-psl was.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Adhesion
• antibacterial properties
• composite materials
• zwitterionic polymer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFC1100703), Henan Provincial Key Research and Development and Promotion Special Project (212102310234) and Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (No.2013ZR1412100).