Polymeric Materials with Antibacterial Activity

Dear Colleagues,

There has been a growing increase in the use of plastics in sectors such as the medicine and food industries. In the first case, the use of these polymers is focused on final applications like (i) devices or tools (catheters, packaging, drug dispensers, etc.) and (ii) materials for tissue regeneration or tissue engineering, for instance. In the case of the food industry, we are mainly talking about containers or thin films for food packaging. Obviously, the materials used in all these applications, besides being easily processable, should present the required properties for their final use such as bicompatibility and adecuate mechanical properties. However, researching in this field has become more activily focused on minimizing or canceling the growth of harmful bacteria that may be pathogens or bacteria that cause material degradation. For all these reasons, the necessity of designing new polymer-based materials that include antibacterial actions to finally achieve the most appropriate performance for the herein-considered applications is evident. There are several strategies to overcome this challenge: (i) the systhesis of new polymers or copolymers having especial functional groups with potential antibacterial action; (ii) the systhesis of polymer-based materials whose surfaces have special physico-chemical properties avoiding bacterial adhesion; (iii) the use of new processing methods to prepare materials with tailored topographies (controlled roughness for instance); (iv) the addition of active agents to polymers (synthetic or natural) with biocide actions (antibiotics and others); and (v) the addition to polymers of nanoparticles (coated or uncoated) such us Cu, Ag, TiO₂, etc., with potential antibacterial action.

The aim of this Special Issue is to show the most recent advances on the design, synthesis, processing, characterization, properties, and performance of polymer-based materials with antibacterial actions.

Prof. Javier González-Benito
Guest Editor

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