Nanomechanical Characterization of Bacterial Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract

Polyhydroxyalkanoates are a promising class of biopolymers that can allow the production of sustainable plastic materials. The mechanical properties of such materials are very important for possible industrial applications, but the amount of polymer required for common mechanical testing can be orders of magnitude more than what is possible to achieve with a lab-scale process. Nanoindentation with the Atomic Force Microscope allows an estimation of the Elastic Modulus that can be used as a preliminary measurement on PHA when only a limited amount of material is available. Poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) copolymers were analyzed, with moduli ranging from 528 ± 62 MPa to 1623 ± 172 MPa, according to both the composition and the crystallization kinetics.

Dual production of polyhydroxyalkanoates and antibacterial/antiviral gold nanoparticles

“…Additionally, the coating surface exhibited a slightly less hydrophobic nature compared to the surface of the noncoated PHA, which is consistent with previous findings reported by Sengupta and Prasad (Sengupta and Prasad, 2018). In future a more indepth characterisation of the surface properties of the AuNPs/PHA coating could be conducted using Atomic Force Microscopy (Bagatella et al, 2022;Pospisilova et al, 2022). The potential of these composite materials as coatings with antibacterial and antiviral properties was also investigated.…”