Hydrogel Nanocomposite for Antibacterial Applications

Abstract

The development of hydrogels in the past few years in order to obtain an enhanced material with improved properties have led to the emergence of nanocomposite hydrogels that have unique properties which allows it to be used in various different fields and applications such as drug delivery, adsorption soil containing, tissue engineering, wound dressing and especially antimicrobial applications. Nanocomposite hydrogel are versatile materials that can be used as an alternative to the conventional antimicrobial agents that pathogens can become resistant to as the crosslinking of the polymeric materials along with the nanoparticles enhances the mechanical properties and the antimicrobial activity of the hydrogel. Thus, this study was conducted in order to fabricate a novel super absorbent terpolymer nanocomposite hydrogel through using the free radical co-polymerization method based on the usage of 2-Acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS), acrylamide, acrylonitrile and acrylic acid monomers and iron oxide (Fe2O3) magnetic

nanoparticle and using benzoyl peroxide as initiator and ethylene glycol di- methacrylate (EGDMA) as crosslinker to test it for antimicrobial activity. The structure

of the synthesized composite was confirmed using FTIR spectroscopy and XRD apparatus. Furthermore, the surface morphology and the magnetic nano-particle distributions were determined by SEM instrument. In addition to the that the swelling capacity of hydrogel nanocomposite was measured using the swelling test and lastly the efficiency of the produced composite was evaluated as antimicrobial agent for Gram positive Bacillus subtilis & Gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria and Candida albicans fungal strain.