Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Polymeric Surfaces Based on Natural Oil with Antimicrobial Effect

Abstract

Many polymer materials have found a wide variety of applications in biomedical industries due to their excellent mechanical properties. However, the infections associated with the biofilm formation represent serious problems resulting from the initial bacterial attachment on the polymeric surface. The development of novel slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPSs) represents promising method for the biofilm formation prevention. These surfaces are characterized by specific microstructural roughness able to hold lubricants inside. The lubricants create a slippery layer for the repellence of various liquids, such as water and blood. In this study, effective antimicrobial modifications of polyethylene (PE) and polyurethane (PU), as commonly used medical polymers, were investigated. For this purpose, low-temperature plasma treatment was used initially for activation of the polymeric surface, thereby enhancing surface and adhesion properties. Subsequently, preparation of porous microstructures was achieved by electrospinning technique using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in combination with polyamide (PA). Finally, natural black seed oil (BSO) infiltrated the produced fiber mats acting as a lubricating layer. The optimized fiber mats’ production was achieved using PDMS/PA mixture at ratio 1:1:20 (g/g/mL) using isopropyl alcohol as solvent. The surface properties of produced slippery surfaces were analyzed by various microscopic and optics techniques to obtain information about wettability, sliding behavior and surface morphology/topography. The modified PE and PU substrates demonstrated slippery behavior of an impinged water droplet at a small tilting angle. Moreover, the antimicrobial effects of the produced SLIPs using black seed oil were proven against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli).

Fabrication of Poly(Ethylene-glycol 1,4-Cyclohexane Dimethylene-Isosorbide-Terephthalate) Electrospun Nanofiber Mats for Potential Infiltration of Fibroblast Cells

“…In addition, the fiber topography on the surface of PEICT ENM, revealed by the inset atomic force microscopic (AFM) image of Figure 2A, showed a smaller number of gaps between the nanofibers. Good fibroblast cell adhesion on the PEICT ENM surface was perhaps due to the similar frequency of the nanofiber's average diameter, which helped in providing smoothness in parallel to an interconnected nanofiber network to support fibroblast cell infiltration [4,[26][27][28][29].…”

Utilizing Lubricant Loss from Omniphobic Coatings as a Multifunctional Delivery Mechanism

“…Rather than attempting to prevent lubricant dehydration, we demonstrated that the inevitable process can in utilized to deliver a payload in the form of Ag NPs, as shown by the in vitro assays at 0.2 wt % compared to previous concentrations of 1 wt %. 13 Other antibacterial reagents that could be incorporated into omniphobic LIS include crystal violet 29 antithrombotic agents, functional lipid NPs, or more organic reagents such as black seed oil 30 or natural antimicrobial oils (carvacrol, thymol, cinnamaldehyde, etc.). Therefore, the multifunctionalization of omniphobic coatings represents a novel avenue for investigation which can utilize pre-existing knowledge from hydrogel and other therapeutic release materials to create tailorable omniphobic organogel coatings.…”

Recent advances of slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces with anti-corrosion

“…The report by Mikriukova et al not only demonstrates the excellent sliding properties of SLIPS prepared using rapeseed oil, but also proved the promising future of natural lubricants in this field. Habib et al 143 reported a method of preparing SLIPS using natural black seed oil as lubricant. Black seed oil with superior natural properties and antimicrobial properties contains 32 compounds, the main components being 9-octene (63.04%), linoleic acid (13.48%) and palmitic acid (9.68%).…”