engleski

Atmospheric pressure plasma jet assisted incorporation o0f gold nanoparticles into polymers for various applications

1. Motivation. There is a continuous need for improved materials so they are more resistant or have some special properties, such as antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. However, various applications require materials that have one-off application and should therefore be economical and good for the environment. Such materials, that are inexpensive, are polymers and they have diverse applications, for a good part in medicine. Since one of the possible ways to improve a material is nanoparticle impregnation, this work presents three methods of nanoparticle impregnation into polymers. Preliminary research was done on different polymers with multiple colloidal nanoparticles, whereas a special attention was devoted to studies of PVC polymer and Au nanoparticles. 2. Experiment. Nanoparticles used in this experiment were in their colloidal form, synthesized within this research by a process of laser ablation. Laser synthesis of nanoparticles in liquids is known as the “green synthesis” technique as it provides not inhalable colloidal nanoparticles of wide variety of metals with no residues or byproducts, and often no further purification is required. Moreover, the laser pulses can additionally generate, de-agglomerate, fragmentate, and re-shape nanoparticles. In addition to those advantages, the laser ablation is a simple and straightforward technique and only a small piece of metal is needed for the process, with no unused remains. Unlike the methods where nanoparticles are incorporated not only at the surface but in the bulk of polymer material, our method is focused on incorporating nanoparticles only to the surface, keeping the bulk material untouched. This is a cost-efficient route to incorporate nanoparticles into polymers. Within this approach, 4 methods are tested: 1) Au nanoparticles deposited onto the polymer surface by drop-coating method, 2) polymer surface treated with APPJ, 3) polymer surface containing nanoparticles deposited by drop- coating on plasma pre-treated polymer, and 4) polymer surface containing nanoparticles deposited by drop-coating and sequent plasma treatment after water evaporated. 3. Results. The analysis of colloidal nanoparticles exhibits a narrow size distribution which is suitable for antibacterial applications. Moreover, the preliminary results of roughness and contact angle demonstrate appropriate change for nanoparticle impregnation on multiple polymers, especially PVC. SEM images show presence of Au nanoparticles on all samples, especially on a sample not treated with APPJ (just Au drop coating) since there, nanoparticles are present only on the surface. In samples where NPs are put first and then the polymer was treated with APPJ, NPs are harder to detect due to the increased surface roughness. 4. Conclusion. The presented work shows preliminary results of constructing antibacterial coatings. Some of the methods of nanoparticle impregnation, such as combinations of APPJ treatment with NPS, are promising.

APPJ assisted nanoparticle incorporation in polymers

nije evidentirano