Issue 9, 2022, Issue in Progress

Double noncovalent network chitosan/hyperbranched polyethylenimine/Fe3+ films with high toughness and good antibacterial activity

Abstract

The application of pure chitosan films is significantly limited due to their poor mechanical properties. In this study, a novel type of chitosan/hyperbranched polyethylenimine (CHP) and chitosan/hyperbranched polyethylenimine/Fe3+ (CHPF) films with high toughness and good antibacterial activity were prepared through a noncovalent crosslinking method. From the tensile test results, the strain and toughness of the CHP film increased by 798.1% and 292.3%, respectively, compared with pure chitosan film, after the addition of 20% hyperbranched polyethylenimine (HPEI). The addition of trace metal iron ions (3 mg) forms a metal coordination bond with the amine group on HPEI, as well as the hydroxyl group and amine group on chitosan, and develops a double noncovalent bond network structure with hydrogen bonding, which further enhances the mechanical tensile strength of the chitosan-based film, with an increase of 48.4%. Interestingly, HPEI and Fe3+ can be used as switches to increase and decrease the fluorescence property of chitosan, respectively. Furthermore, the CHP and CHPF films showed good antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli.

Graphical abstract: Double noncovalent network chitosan/hyperbranched polyethylenimine/Fe3+ films with high toughness and good antibacterial activity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Nov 2021
Accepted
20 Jan 2022
First published
14 Feb 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 5255-5264

Double noncovalent network chitosan/hyperbranched polyethylenimine/Fe3+ films with high toughness and good antibacterial activity

K. Xu, Q. Dai, K. Dong, N. Wei and Z. Qin, RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 5255 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA08121G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements