Microbial infection remains one of the most serious complications in several areas, particularly in medical devices, drugs, health care and hygienic applications, water purification systems, hospital and dental surgery equipment, textiles, food packaging, and food storage. Antimicrobials gain interest from both academic research and industry due to their potential to provide quality and safety benefits to many materials. However, low molecular weight antimicrobial agents suffer from many disadvantages, such as toxicity to the environment and short-term antimicrobial ability. To overcome problems associated with the low molecular weight antimicrobial agents, antimicrobial functional groups can be introduced into polymer molecules. The use of antimicrobial polymers offers promise for enhancing the efficacy of some existing antimicrobial agents and minimizing the environmental problems accompanying conventional antimicrobial agents by reducing the residual toxicity of the agents, increasing their efficiency and selectivity, and prolonging the lifetime of the antimicrobial agents. Research concerning the development of antimicrobial polymers represents a great a challenge for both the academic world and industry. This article reviews the state of the art of antimicrobial polymers primarily since the last comprehensive review by one of the authors in 1996. In particular, it discusses the requirements of antimicrobial polymers, factors affecting the antimicrobial activities, methods of synthesizing antimicrobial polymers, major fields of applications, and future and perspectives in the field of antimicrobial polymers.

The infrared spectrum of CO chemisorbed on alumina-supported Rh atoms has been investigated. In agreement with previous work, three types of adsorbed species have been clearly distinguished on the basis of their C–O stretching frequencies. Species I, assigned as Rh(CO)2, is formed only with Rh atoms which are isolated from each other. Species II, assigned as Rh–CO, and III, assigned as Rh2CO, are formed on Rh clusters having two or more Rh atoms. CO-species II and III undergo interactions with neighbor CO species causing an increase in wave number as coverage increases. Based on infrared intensity measurements for species I, the OC–Rh–CO angle is ∼90°. Chemisorbed 13CO yields the expected infrared spectrum on Rh, and rapid isotopic exchange between 13CO(ads) and 12CO(g) is observed which cannot be explained by the observed rate of desorption of CO from the supported Rh surface.

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An extensive infrared investigation of the CO/Rhl AI,OJ system has revealed the presence of eight different CO/Rh species including two which have not been observed previously. It has been shown that Rh loading on an alumina support is more critical than reduction temperature in effecting infrared spectral changes in the 1800-2200 cm -\ region. The oxidation state of Rh for the various CO/Rh species has been discussed; it has been postulated that for several of the species the oxidation state of Rh is greater than 0. Furthermore, this work indicates that there is significant atomic dispersion on Rhl AI,OJ catalysts prepared from RhCI J ·3H,OI AI,OJ by a procedure described originally by Yang and Garland. These catalysts retain appreciable amounts of chlorine even following hydrogenation at 673 K.