Aminophosphonic groups grafted onto the structure of macroporous styrene–divinylbenzene copolymer: preparation and studies on the antimicrobial effect

Abstract

This paper has investigated the preparation, characterization and antimicrobial effect of two new compounds. α-Aminophosphonic acid groups were grafted onto the structure of a styrene-6.7% divinylbenzene (S-6.7% DVB) copolymer. The compounds bearing the N–C–P skeleton in α-aminophosphonic acids groups were synthesized following a “one-pot” modified Kabachnik–Fields reaction performed with three components (polymeric amine, aldehyde and phosphorous acid) in tetrahydrofuran at 55 °C. The presence of 2 novel products: aminobenzylphosphonic acid (BzAmPhonic) and aminopropylphosphonic acid (PrAmPhonic) grafted on (S-6.7% DVB) copolymer was indicated by characterization using FT-IR spectroscopy, EDX, TGA, measurement of the phosphorus content and the degree of functionalization with pendant α-aminophosphonic acid group. It was proved that novel products have an antimicrobial effect in vitro after 1 h of contact against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Escherichia coli (E. coli), Bacillus cereus (B. cereus), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and a species of yeast Candida albicans (C. albicans). The best antibacterial activity was obtained by the PrAmPhonic sample. We were interested in obtaining new polymeric functionalized compounds endowed with very good antimicrobial properties. The main advantage of the novel antibacterial agents synthesized in this work is that they can be easily recovered in order not to contaminate the environment.