Bacterial attachment and subsequent biofilm formation pose key challenges to the optimal performance of medical devices. In this study, we determined the attachment of selected bacterial species to hundreds of polymeric materials in a high-throughput microarray format. Using this method, we identified a group of structurally related materials comprising ester and cyclic hydrocarbon moieties that substantially reduced the attachment of pathogenic bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli). Coating silicone with these 'hit' materials achieved up to a 30-fold (96.7%) reduction in the surface area covered by bacteria compared with a commercial silver hydrogel coating in vitro, and the same material coatings were effective at reducing bacterial attachment in vivo in a mouse implant infection model. These polymers represent a class of materials that reduce the attachment of bacteria that could not have been predicted to have this property from the current understanding of bacteriasurface interactions.
This paper explains the phenomena which occur in commercially available laboratory microwave equipment, and highlights several situations where experimental observations are often misinterpreted as a 'microwave effect'. Electromagnetic simulations and heating experiments were used to show the quantitative effects of solvent type, solvent volume, vessel material, vessel internals and stirring rate on the distribution of the electric field, the power density and the rate of heating. The simulations and experiments show how significant temperature gradients can exist within the heated materials, and that very different results can be obtained depending on the method used to measure temperature. The overall energy balance is shown for a number of different solvents, and the interpretation and implications of using the results from commercially available microwave equipment are discussed.
Hyperbranched polymers with both highly branched structures and numerous vinyl functional groups
have been synthesized via reversible activation/deactivation controlled polymerization of multifunctional vinyl
monomers. By controlling the competition between propagation and reversible termination using a deactivation
enhanced method, the growth rate of polymer chains is decreased and the onset of gelation is prevented until the
system has achieved much higher levels of conversion than has previously been reported for nonenhanced systems.
Here, we demonstrate this strategy by synthesizing highly branched, irregular dendritic polymers with a multiplicity
of reactive functionalities such as vinyl and halogen functional groups, and controlled chain structure via
deactivation enhanced atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of a commercially available multifunctional
vinyl monomerdivinylbenzene (DVB) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA).
A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. We present new acrylic monomers derived directly from abundant naturally available terpenes via a facile, green and catalytic approach. These monomers can be polymerised to create new polymers with a wide range of mechanical properties that positions them ideally for application across the commodity and specialty plastics landscape; from packaging, cosmetic and medical, through to composites and coatings.We demonstrate their utility through formation of novel renewable polymer coatings.
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