Influence of carbon nanotubes structures embedded in UHMWPE on bacterial adherence

ABSTRACT

Because of their intrinsic properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been suggested for biomedical applications. We studied the anti-adherent performance of two ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) surfaces which contains 3% multi-wall CNT variant (MWCNT): Nanocyl/UHMWPE and Arc/UHMWPE. These surfaces were obtained by hot pressure forming after mechanical mixture. Additional nanoindentation studies were performed and hardness and stiffness were determined. Mechanical properties of the MWCNT/UHMWPE composites were also compared to raw UHMWPE and correlated with their anti-adherent performance. Comparing with UHMWPE, Nanocyl/UHMWPE was the least adherent surface. Bacterial adherence was also significantly reduced in Arc/UHMWPE for four strains.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Bacterial adherence
• mechanical properties
• multi-wall carbon nanotubes
• ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene

Disclosure

No conflicts of interest for all authors. Results of S. aureus and S. epidermidis were previously presented in a conference paper (Del Prado, G., Pascual, F. J., Molina-Manso, D., Puertolas, J. A., Gomez-Barrena, E., Esteban, J., 2012. Bacterial adherence on UHMWPE/MWCNT composites: Searching new clinical applications for multi-wall carbon nanotubes structures. In: Proceedings of EORS. Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and in a review (Puértolas, J. A.; Kurtz, S. M. J. Mech. Behav. Biomed. Mater. 2014, 39, 129–145).

Additional information

Funding

We wish to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia (project CONSOLIDER FUNCOAT CSD2008-00023) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Red CONSOLIDER MAT2015-69035-REDC and MAT2013-48224-C2-2-R) for the financial support. FJP and GdP received research contracts from Ministerio de Ciencia (CONSOLIDER), and DMM received a predoctoral scholarship from Fundación Conchita Rábago.