Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Polymerized Oxazoline-Based Thin Films-Antibacterial Properties and Cytocompatibility Performance.

Pavel Sťahel,Lubomír Prokeš,Antonín Brablec,Jana Jurmanová,Petra Matoušková,Roman Přibyl,Klára Tomečková,David Trunec,Marián Lehocký,Věra Mazánková,Vilma Buršíková,Kadir Ozaltin,Petr Humpolíček

doi:10.3390/polym11122069

Abstract

Polyoxazolines are a new promising class of polymers for biomedical applications. Antibiofouling polyoxazoline coatings can suppress bacterial colonization of medical devices, which can cause infections to patients. However, the creation of oxazoline-based films using conventional methods is difficult. This study presents a new way to produce plasma polymerized oxazoline-based films with antibiofouling properties and good biocompatibility. The films were created via plasma deposition from 2-methyl-2-oxazoline vapors in nitrogen atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge. Diverse film properties were achieved by increasing the substrate temperature at the deposition. The physical and chemical properties of plasma polymerized polyoxazoline films were studied by SEM, EDX, FTIR, AFM, depth-sensing indentation technique, and surface energy measurement. After tuning of the deposition parameters, films with a capacity to resist bacterial biofilm formation were achieved. Deposited films also promote cell viability.

Highlights

Polyoxazolines (POx) are a promising and important class of polymers that have attracted substantial attention recently due to their antibiofouling properties [1,2] and good biocompatibility [3].Usually, POx are prepared by living-cationic ring-opening polymerization, which is a lengthy wet process conducted in organic solvents
Similar results were observed in a study by other authors [18], where the POx films deposited at low radio frequency (RF) power supplied to RF discharge were soluble in water
The films deposited at substrate temperatures of 60 ◦ C and 90 ◦ C are soluble in water and their antibiofouling properties decrease after their washing by water

Summary

Introduction

Polyoxazolines (POx) are a promising and important class of polymers that have attracted substantial attention recently due to their antibiofouling properties [1,2] and good biocompatibility [3].Usually, POx are prepared by living-cationic ring-opening polymerization, which is a lengthy wet process conducted in organic solvents. The formation of polyoxazoline coatings using conventional methods is a slow and complex multistep procedure, which can be conducted only on a limited range of substrates. The difficulties of these conventional methods can be overcome via plasma polymerization. Plasma polymerization is known to be a suitable method for the deposition of many biomaterial coatings [8,9]. A suitable discharge type for plasma deposition at atmospheric pressure is a homogeneous dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), which can be obtained in nitrogen. This discharge type is called atmospheric pressure

Methods

Results

Conclusion