Antibacterial Quaternary Chitosan / Alginate Polyelectrolyte Hydrogel Films with Silver Nanoparticles

Polymeric materials have an increasing attention due to their cost effective, easy to use, bio degradable and bio compatible properties. Particularly chitosan and alginate are two natural polymers which form fılm by making polyelectrolyte complex to use as antimicrobial agent. In order to enhance the antimicrobial activity of chitosan quaternization of the polymer is one strategy. In this regard, Quaternary chitosan was synthesized with glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride to fabricate polyelectrolyte bio composite film with alginate. Two different mililiters (10 mL and 20 mL) of silver nitrate solution were used to obtain a quaternary chitosan-alginate film loaded with silver nanoparticles. Polyelectrolyte hydrogel films were prepared by the simple method without using any other solvent. The characterization of the polyelectrolyte films was made by FT-IR Spectroscopy and the colour of the films changed from white to brown after adding silver solution, indicating that silver nanoparticles were loaded on the film. In addition, the immediate whitening of the film thrown into the PBS solution with the swelling test indicates that the film swells and releases silver nanoparticles into the environment. The antibacterial and antifungal activity of four different kind of films (chitosan alginate (V4), quaternary chitosan-alginate (V2), quaternary chitosan-alginate with 10mL silver (V1) and quaternary chitosan-alginate with 20 mL silver (V3)) were compared by the disk diffusion method and antimicrobial effect of silver was observed. The films have a hydrophilic character. In this study we fabricated a novel promising antimicrobial material which may use as wound healing or disinfection agent especially against common pathogens Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), Escherichia coli (E. coli), Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae).