Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
11th International İstanbul Scientific Research Congress, İstanbul, Türkiye, 15 - 17 Ekim 2022, ss.215
Biodegradable polymers exhibit great potential to be a critical part of the global sustainability solution; however, their application areas are limited due to their poor UV resistance, low mechanical strength and inadequate antibacterial properties. Although nano metal oxide powders are often used to improve the properties; they exhibit toxicity, sometimes can cause processing difficulties via uncontrolled agglomeration. Accordingly, alternative additive forms that will be biocompatible, providing both excellent UV resistance and antibacterial effect, are needed to improve the properties of polymers. Recently, designed, biocompatible and environmentally benign micron size hexagonal platelet particles that are composed of fine primary particles, called as MicNo® , have been developed to exploit the advantages of both micron and nano size, while mitigating the adverse effects of nanoparticles. Consequently, the research objective of the present study was to evaluate effects of MicNo® ZnO particles on structure development and hence optical, mechanical and antibacterial properties of low molecular weight Chitosan/PVA films with respect to nano ZnO as a first time in the literature. the MicNo® containing films exhibited the highest average tensile strength and elongation as 1.41 MPa and 43.54%, respectively, among the doped films. This strength value refers to 206% and 115% improvement with respect to pristine and nanoparticle containing films, respectively. Furthermore, MicNo® ZnO containing films exhibited higher UV-absorbance values than nano ZnO particle containing films. These results suggest that the UV resistance of the films can be improved much more effectively by MicNo® particles with respect to nanoparticles. This outstanding performance enhancement can be attributed to much more effective surface covering ability of unique hexagonal morphology of MicNo® particles with respect to speherical nano particles. Although the pristine films exhibited poor antibacterial activity, incorporation of ZnO particles into the films resulted in development of antibacterial effect. Against to both S. Aureus and E.Coli bacteria MicNo® ZnO particles exhibited very high antibacterial effect. Consequently, MicNo® particles exhibit many advantages over nano particles and hence demonstrate a great potential as new generation additive systems for biodegradable polymers to extend their application areas.