Preparation of antibacterial polysulfone films and their industrial application

Microbial infection caused by bacteria is a serious health problem to the human population. In recent years, considerable attentions have been devoted to investigations of novel antibacterial materials that have been used for their ability to kill many microorganisms. The antibacterial materials not only comprise metal ions such as silver ions, but also have quaternary ammonium salts to enhance the antibacterial effects.Polysulfones (PSU) are the family of thermoplastics that have excellent thermal and chemical stability, high radiational degradation resistance, transparency, high rigidity, mechanical strength and good electrical properties. Also, polysulfones have good film properties therefore these polymers have been used for many applications that medical devices (haemodialysis), food processing, feeding systems, automotive, electronics, water distillation, gas separation and fuel cells. The chemical modification of polysulfones, especially cloromethlylation and quarternization, is a subject of considerable interest from recent investigations. Functional polysulfones obtained by cloromethlylation reaction and quaternization with ammonium groups will be display antibacterial properties that can be used for several applications, e.g. biomaterials, medical devices and membranes. In this thesis, firstly, commerically polysulfones is functionalized by cloromethlylation route. Then, these polysulfones react with sodium diethyl dithiocarbamate to obtain functional polysulfones bearing iniferter groups at side chain. After that, these iniferter groups can be activated with UV light to graft 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate onto the polysulfone backbone. Finally, quarternization experiment proceed with methly iodide to synthesize corresponding graft copolymer containing quetarnary ammonioum salts. The thin films of this polymers were prepared by a dry-cast process using dimethyl sulfoxide as solvent. The structure and properties of obtained materials were characterized by spectroscopic (FT-IR and 1H-NMR), chromarographic (GPC), thermal (DSC) and antibacterial analyses. Compared to neat graft copolymers, the quaternized graft copolymers display a slight antibacterial effect.