Abstract
More than 60 million tons of sulfur are produced as a byproduct of the petrochemical industry annually. Recently, the inverse vulcanization process has transformed this excess sulfur into functional polymers by stabilization with organic cross-linkers. These interesting new polymers have many potential applications covering diverse areas. However, there has been very little focus on the potential of these high-sulfur polymers for their antibacterial properties. These properties are examined here by exposing two common bacteria species, Escherichia coli (E. Coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), to two structurally different, inverse vulcanized sulfur polymers: sulfur-co-diisopropenyl benzene (S-DIB) and sulfur dicyclopentadiene (S-DCPD). We report the highest bacteria log reduction (>log 4.3) of adhered bacterial cells (S. aureus) to an inverse vulcanized sulfur polymer to date and investigate the potential pathways in which antibacterial activity may occur.
Highlights
Synthetic polymers are ubiquitous and among the most extensively manufactured materials on earth
We have demonstrated the ability of inverse vulcanized sulfur polymers as bulk substrates to act as antibacterial surfaces against E. coli and S. aureus, the causes of common persistent bacterial infections
We show the activity of two high-sulfur-content polymers, as bulk solids, against both Gram-negative and -positive bacteria
Summary
Synthetic polymers are ubiquitous and among the most extensively manufactured materials on earth. The majority of synthetic polymers are produced from limited resources derived from petrochemicals.[1] There is, a current goal in materials chemistry to identify sustainable building blocks that provide monomers generated from alternative sources, such as industrial waste. A process termed inverse vulcanization has been shown to allow highsulfur-content polymers to be stabilized against depolymerization by reacting the sulfur with organic small-molecule dienes, allowing sulfur contents up to 90 wt %. From this perspective, there is current interest in exploiting this untapped, low-cost sulfur for materials.[3−10]
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