Abstract
Surface wettability plays an important role in determining the function of a wound dressing. Dressings with hydrophobic surfaces are suitable for bacterial adsorption, however, a hydrophilic surface is needed to improve cell attachment for most anchorage-dependent cell types. Furthermore, the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of the surface can be used to direct cellular processes such as cell initial attachment, adhesion, and migration during wound healing. Thus, a surface with an ability to switch their surface wettability improves the practicality of the dressing. In this study, we propose a temporary surface wettability tuning for surface patterning utilizing plasma treatment. Polycaprolactone (PCL) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surfaces were treated with tetrafluoromethane (CF4), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and oxygen (O2) plasma, and the effects on the surface wettability, roughness, and chemical composition were investigated. Based on the contact angle measurement, CF4 plasma altered surface wettability of PCL and PDMS films to hydrophobic and hydrophilic, respectively. After CF4 treatment, better attachment of primary mouse embryonic fibroblast cell (3T3) was observed on the treated PDMS surface. Embedding PCL into PDMS generated a hydrophobic-hydrophilic pattern mixture surface, which offers great potential in the tissue engineering field such as cell patterning and guidance.
Highlights
An infected wound is treated using antimicrobial agents [1,2] such as silver nanoparticles and bacterial cellulose
Several articles have been issued to demonstrate the application of hydrophobic surfaces for bacterial removal in a wound dressing
Dressing surface coated with dialkyl carbomyl chloride (DACC) increase the hydrophobic characteristic for strong bacteria-reducing effects [3]
Summary
An infected wound is treated using antimicrobial agents [1,2] such as silver nanoparticles and bacterial cellulose. Several articles have been issued to demonstrate the application of hydrophobic surfaces for bacterial removal in a wound dressing. Temporary wettability tuning from hydrophobic to hydrophilic improves the properties of a material for wound dressing application. The ability of a hydrophobic surface to tune to hydrophilic after bacterial absorption helps secure the dressing in position and improve its practicality. Temporary surface wettability tuning can be achieved by chemical coating, plasma modification [5,6,7], ultraviolet irradiation, and corona discharge. Incorporating chemical groups during the interaction of plasma particles with material surface results in changes in material energy [8,9,10], functionality, wettability, and morphology within a short period [11] of treatment time
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