Abstract
To facilitate longer duration space travel, flight crew sickness and disease transmission amongst the crew must be eliminated. High contact surfaces within space vehicles provide an opportunity for bacterial adhesion, which can lead to biofilm formation or disease transmission. This study evaluates the performance of several nonfouling polymers using citizen science, to identify the best performing chemistry for future applications as bacteria resistant coatings. The specific polymer chemistries tested were zwitterionic sulfobetaine methacrylate (SBMA), and polyampholytes composed of [2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl] trimethylammonium chloride and 2-carboxyethyl acrylate (TMA/CAA), or TMA and 3-sulfopropyl methacrylate (TMA/SA). Each polymer chemistry is known to exhibit bacteria resistance, and this study provides a direct side-by-side comparison between the chemistries using a citizen science approach. Nearly 100 citizen scientists returned results comparing the performance of these polymers over repeat exposure to bacteria and 30 total days of growth. The results demonstrate that TMA/CAA polyampholyte hydrogels show the best long-term resistance to bacteria adhesion.
Highlights
The potential for significant impact from microbes during long duration space flights is a concern that must be managed to prevent unwanted infection and disease
Due to the impact of infectious disease on Apollo missions 9–13, a large emphasis has been placed on the flight crew Health Stabilization Program (HSP) which has resulted in a considerable reduction in the risk for infectious disease both before and during flight [7]
The large-scale hydrogels were punched out and Assessment of the performance of nonfouling polymer hydrogels utilizing citizen scientists placed into 60 mm petri dishes, and 5 mL of 0.075 M NaCl was added to each dish to keep the samples hydrated before use
Summary
The potential for significant impact from microbes during long duration space flights is a concern that must be managed to prevent unwanted infection and disease. The evaluation is limited to zwitterionic sulfobetaine methacrylate (SBMA), and polyampholyte mixtures of [2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl] trimethylammonium chloride and 2-carboxyethyl acrylate (TMA/CAA), and TMA and 3-sulfopropyl methacrylate (TMA/SA) This restriction is due to the need to produce many samples to facilitate the citizen scientist evaluation. It has been suggested that a significant portion of citizen science investigations produce results that correlate well with more controlled studies, if the citizen science tasks are appropriately designed [20] In this investigation, citizen scientists in grades 3–5 were used to compare the bacteria resistant performance of SBMA, TMA/CAA, and TMA/SA polymer hydrogels. Upon return of nearly 100 sets of results, it was determined that the TMA/CAA polymer hydrogel was consistently ranked as the sample with the least amount of bacteria growth This suggests that TMA/CAA polymers should be further pursued as bacteria resistant coating for high contact surfaces
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