A new generation antibacterial composite coating material prepared with metal oxide nanoparticles and ecofriendly, biodegradable biopolymers

by Zeynep Kalaycıoğlu | Dec 29, 2021
Plant and animal resource-based biopolymers such as polysaccharides have gained increasing interest over synthetic polymers due to pressing environmental and health concerns. Applications of biopolymers are growing for their biocompatible, non-toxic, and biodegradable features. Chitosan is one of these biopolymers.
Plant and animal resource-based biopolymers such as polysaccharides have gained increasing interest over synthetic polymers due to pressing environmental and health concerns. Applications of biopolymers are growing for their biocompatible, non-toxic, and biodegradable features. Chitosan is one of these biopolymers. Chitosan film has been tested as an edible coating to preserve food, wound dressings, and scaffolds for tissue and bone engineering in the medical field.

The preparation of cerium oxide nanoparticles/chitosan/hydroxyethylcellulose/polyethylene glycol composite films is reported here for the first time. Due to the rapidly increasing biological applications and antibacterial properties of versatile cerium oxide nanoparticles, the effects of these particles on chitosan-based films were investigated. With the improved physical properties and antibacterial activities of the films, cerium oxide nanoparticles incorporated films are suggested as packaging and coating material. This study is a part of the Ph.D. Thesis of Ezgi Kızılkonca and was published in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, a Q1 journal indexed in web of science, having an impact factor 6.953, ranking 6 out of 90 in Polymer Science.