Polymeric materials containing quaternary ammonium and/or phosphonium salts have been extensively studied and applied to a variety of antimicrobial-relevant areas. With various architectures, polymeric quaternary ammonium/phosphonium salts were prepared using different approaches, exhibiting different antimicrobial activities and potential applications. This review focuses on the state of the art of antimicrobial polymers with quaternary ammonium/phosphonium salts. In particular, it discusses the structure and synthesis method, mechanisms of antimicrobial action, and the comparison of antimicrobial performance between these two kinds of polymers.

Nanocellulose, extracted from the most abundant biomass material cellulose, has proved to be an environmentally friendly material with excellent mechanical performance owing to its unique nano-scaled structure, and has been used in a variety of applications as engineering and functional materials. The great biocompatibility and biodegradability, in particular, render nanocellulose promising in biomedical applications. In this review, the structure, treatment technology and properties of three different nanocellulose categories, i.e., nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC), nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and bacterial nanocellulose (BNC), are introduced and compared. The cytotoxicity, biocompatibility and frontier applications in biomedicine of the three nanocellulose categories were the focus and are detailed in each section. Future prospects concerning the cytotoxicity, applications and industrial production of nanocellulose are also discussed in the last section.

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