Atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma deposition of silver nanocomposite on textiles for controllable antibacterial activity

Infections associated with medical textiles are responsible for at least 2-7% of post-operational complications increasing mortality and healthcare costs.[1] Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) present a larger surface-volume area improving the interaction with microorganisms and, consequently, enhancing the silver antimicrobial effect.[2] Conventional antibacterial coatings have several drawbacks but the most important is their uncontrollable antibacterial activity.[3] Additionally, AgNPs can accumulate in the body organs promoting renal, hepatic and neurological disturbs.[4] Incorporating AgNPs in nanocomposites through other compounds such as polymers or reagents have been referred as a suitable alternative to obtain a controllable AgNPs release.[5] In this work a new generation of coatings containing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were produced, by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma-assisted deposition at atmospheric pressure. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma treatment at atmospheric pressure is an environmental friendly method to modify materials, able to increase its surface energy by the introduction of new polar functional enhancing the materials adhesion and wettability.[6] Low concentrated AgNPs dispersions in water and HMDSO or polymers such as chitosan and PVA were prepared and applied in different conformations, including a barrier layer of pristine HMDSO, in order to control the AgNPs ions release. The obtained results demonstrated the enhancement of AgNPs adhesion by DBD plasma treatment and the improved antimicrobial effect of the nanocomposites using HDMSO and polymers controlling the release of AgNPs and Ag+ ions.
This work was funded by FEDER funds under the COMPETE program and by National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) under the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and UID/CTM/00264/2013. A. Zille also acknowledges financial support of the FCT through an Investigator FCT Research contract (IF/00071/2015) and the project PTDC/CTM-TEX/28295/2017 financed by FCT, FEDER and POCI.