Development of cost effective, breathable & biocompatible nanosilver impregnated, acrylic acid grafted non-woven polypropylene (NWPP) wound dressing material with long lasting antimicrobial efficacy

In the present work, antimicrobial silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) immobilized on acrylic acid grafted non-woven polypropylene (AA-g-NWPP) fabric with excellent breathability has been prepared via two-step process. As NWPP fabric devoid functional groups, polyacrylic acid was grafted by thermochemical method using ammonium persulfate as an initiator, in order to incorporate carboxylate anchoring groups on NWPP fabric. The AA-g-NWPP fabric was further impregnated with Ag NPs, synthesized using trisodium citrate as a reducing agent, by immersion method. Different techniques such as FTIR, SEM, TEM, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), wettability by water contact angle, tensile testing, etc., has been employed to characterize the samples. ICP analysis was carried out to measure the loading of Ag NPs and to measure the leaching percentage of Ag NPs from Ag NPs loaded AA-g-NWPP in water and saline solution. The WVTR of Ag NPs loaded AA-g-NWPP was found to be 994 g/day.m 2 which was higher than the required limit of 500 g/day.m 2 . The contact angle measurements confirmed the hydrophilicity of Ag NP’s loaded NWPP fabric. Furthermore, antibacterial activity of Ag NP’s impregnated NWPP fabric has also been tested against S. aureus and E. coli and found to show excellent antibacterial activity. The developed antimicrobial Ag NPs loaded AA-g-NWPP fabric carries great promise to be used as wound dressing material.