ABSTRACT
In the present study, Antimicrobial PVC films containing different amounts of clove oil as a plasticizer were prepared using traditional casting method. The physical and mechanical properties of the plasticized PVC membranes e.g. surface wettability were investigated. The increase of clove oil content demonstrated an increase in surface hydrophilicity and elongation to break the film. The thermogravimetric analysis revealed a decrease of polymer thermal stability by increasing clove oil concentration. The antibacterial activities against four different bacterial strains (two-gram positive: Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus & two-gram negative: Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli) were promoted by addition of clove oil. Although the natural source of clove oil, the bio-evaluation of plasticized membranes showed an increase in hemolysis percent (%) and thrombus weight. It can be concluded that the addition of clove to PVC need to further studies for applying in blood bags.
ABSTRACT
In this study, the thermo-sensitive copolymers were synthesized by graft copolymerization of poly N isopropyl acrylamide (PNIPAm) onto chitosan (Ch) and aminated chitosan (AmCh) derivative. Free radical polymerization using potassium persulphate (KPS) as initiator was used for performing the grafting process. FTIR, TGA and DSC analysis were used to verify the structure of the resulting graft copolymers. The thermal sensitivity of the prepared copolymers was determined by monitoring the phase transition temperature at 550nm using a UV–VIS spectrophotometer. The results show that the transition of the PNIPAm-g-Ch is sharper than that of the PNIPAm-g-AmCh and the tr-ansition, in both cases, became sharper as increase the PNIPAm grating percentage.