Antibacterial Property of Cellulose Acetate Composite Materials Reinforced with Aluminum Nitride.

Thefye P. M. Sunthar,Wenliang Zhu,Taigi Honma,Elia Marin,Hoan Ngoc Doan,Francesco Boschetto,Tetsuya Adachi,Kenji Kinashi,Giuseppe Pezzotti

doi:10.3390/antibiotics10111292

Abstract

Cellulose acetate (CA) is a synthetic compound that is derived from the acetylation of cellulose. CA is well known as it has been used for many commercial products such as textiles, plastic films, and cigarette filters. In this research, antibacterial CA composites were produced by addition of aluminum nitride (AlN) at different weight percentage, from 0 wt. % to 20 wt. %. The surface characterization was performed using laser microscope, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. The mechanical and thermal properties of the composite were analyzed. Although the mechanical strength tended to decrease as the concentration of AlN increased and needed to be optimized, the melting temperature (Tm) and glass transition temperature (Tg) showed a shift toward higher values as the AlN concentration increased leading to an improvement in thermal properties. AlN additions in weight percentages >10 wt. % led to appreciable antibacterial properties against S. epidermidis and E. coli bacteria. Antibacterial CA/AlN composites with higher thermal stability have potential applications as alternative materials for plastic packaging in the food industry.

Highlights

Food provides nutritional support for any organism
After consideration of the previous research, this research is aimed to implement the new and easy idea to produce the antibacterial composite material using degradable cellulose acetate material as the main substrate and reinforced with aluminum nitride (AlN) which could replace the usage of plastic material
Five different samples were produced with 0 wt. %, 5 wt. %, 10 wt. %, 15 wt. % and 20 wt. % of AlN, respectively, (i.e., Cellulose acetate (CA) content = 100 wt. % − AlN wt. %)

Summary

Introduction

Food provides nutritional support for any organism. Most people around the world are not aware of the dangers related to the lack of proper food hygiene. According to a survey from World Health Organization (WHO), 600 million cases of foodborne diseases and 420,000 deaths were recorded worldwide in the year 2015. Food contamination may happen during harvesting, processing, packaging and distribution [2]. Packaging plays an important role to protect food from being affected by various kinds of contaminants and preserve the products from biological, chemical and physical changes while storage or during preparation. In many so-called “advanced countries”, the food quality is a very important factor—they used to reject it even if there was a small change in the smell or appearance [1]

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