Antibacterial poly(vinyl alcohol) film containing silver nanoparticles: Preparation and characterization

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The importance of antibacterial materials for biomedical applications is growing nowadays. The pre-sented article deals with the characterization of structural, mechanical and thermal properties and of antibacterial pol-ymeric films based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and silver nitrate, which can find their applicability in wound dress-ing components and protective coating. The methods of transmission electron microscopy, UV–vis and XRD spec-troscopy, optical microscopy, differential scanning calorime-try, stress–strain analysis, and agar diffusion test were used to characterize the polymer films prepared. The results showed strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus already at the lowest addition level of silver nitrate. An improvement of mechanical prop-erties (Young’s modulus) was also noticed due to a modifi