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ORCID

N/A

Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

thesis

Degree Program

Food Science

Degree Type

Master of Science (M.S.)

Year Degree Awarded

2015

Month Degree Awarded

May

Abstract

Antimicrobial coatings in which the active agent (e.g. N-halamine) can regenerate activity represent a promising way to prevent microbial cross-contamination. A reported method for applying coatings containing antimicrobial N-halamines is layer-by-layer (LbL) application of polyelectrolytes, which form N-halamines upon cross-linking. Prior reports on dip layer-by-layer (LbL) fabrication have demonstrated the potential of this coating technology; however, spray LbL fabrication would enable more rapid coating and represents a more commercially translatable application technique. In this work, dip and spray LbL methods were used to coat polypropylene (PP) with N-halamine containing bilayers consisting of cross-linked polyethylenimine (PEI) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA). Further experimentation with spray LbL fabrication used naturally occurring polyelectrolytes, chitosan and alginate. Materials were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM), ellipsometry, contact angle, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a chlorine content assay, and a dye assay for amine quantification. All methods of coating application exhibited a 99.999% (5-log) reduction against Listeria monocytogenes with application time for spray LbL taking less than 10% of the time required for dip LbL. Spray LbL fabrication of N-halamines is a rapid and inexpensive method to fabricate rechargeable antimicrobial surfaces.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/6935295

First Advisor

Julie M Goddard

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