Abstract

Many wounds are unresponsive to currently available treatment techniques and therefore there is an immense need to explore suitable materials, including biomaterials, which could be considered as the crucial factor to accelerate the healing cascade. In this study, we fabricated polyhydroxyalkanoate-based antibacterial mats via an electrospinning technique. One-pot green synthesized graphene-decorated silver nanoparticles (GAg) were incorporated into the fibres of poly-3 hydroxybutarate-co-12 mol.% hydroxyhexanoate (P3HB-co-12 mol.% HHx), a co-polymer of the polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) family which is highly biocompatible, biodegradable, and flexible in nature. The synthesized PHA/GAg biomaterial has been characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), elemental mapping, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). An in vitro antibacterial analysis was performed to investigate the efficacy of PHA/GAg against gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) strain 12,600 ATCC and gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) strain 8739 ATCC. The results indicated that the PHA/GAg demonstrated significant reduction of S. aureus and E. coli as compared to bare PHA or PHA- reduced graphene oxide (rGO) in 2 h of time. The p value (p < 0.05) was obtained by using a two-sample t-test distribution.

Details

Title
Fabrication and Characterization of an Electrospun PHA/Graphene Silver Nanocomposite Scaffold for Antibacterial Applications
Author
Mukheem, Abdul 1 ; Muthoosamy, Kasturi 2 ; Sivakumar Manickam 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kumar, Sudesh 3 ; Shahabuddin, Syed 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rahman Saidur 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Noor, Akbar 6 ; Sridewi, Nanthini 1 

1  Department of Maritime Science and Technology Faculty of Science and Defence Technology, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia 
2  Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Semenyih 43500, Malaysia 
3  Applied Microbiology and Ecobiomaterial Research Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia 
4  Research Centre for Nano-Materials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia 
5  Research Centre for Nano-Materials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia; School of Postgraduate Studies and Research, American University of Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah 31208, UAE 
6  Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia 
First page
1673
Publication year
2018
Publication date
2018
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
19961944
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ma11091673
ProQuest document ID
2607318440
Copyright
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.