Text/Polymer

With improvement of people's living standards and development of science and technology, study of microorganisms is also becoming more and more perfect. There are many kinds of microorganisms, mainly including bacteria, viruses, fungi and some algae. Using microorganisms to create value in our lives, we also need to be extremely vigilant about harmfulness of certain pathogenic bacteria. For example, "New Coronary Pneumonia" epidemic has caused enormous damage to our country's economy and people's lives. antimicrobial materials.

Fig. 1. Antibacterial materials in everyday life

Antibacterial material refers to a new type of functional material that kills or inhibits microorganisms. It is like adding a “shield” in front of people to prevent invasion of microorganisms, as shown in Figure 1. Therefore, this article will focus on antibacterial agents and types and characteristics of antibacterial agents.

1. Antibacterial measures

Antibacterial methods mainly include physical and chemical methods. As shown in Table 1-1. In the field of materials, antibacterial materials are currently produced mainly by adding a certain amount of antibacterial agents. This method is simple, widely applicable, high efficiency and long duration.

Table 1-1 Antibacterial agents and mechanism

2. Types and characteristics of antibacterial agents

The basis of antibacterial materials is an antibacterial agent, which is a kind of substance or product with antibacterial and bactericidal properties. There are thousands of products on market, of course, quality is also not same. The key is to choose right type of antibacterial agent. According to classification of antibacterial agents by chemical composition, according to this method, they can be divided into natural antibacterial agents, inorganic antibacterial agents, organic small molecular weight antibacterial agents, organic polymer antibacterial agents, and compound antibacterial agents.

2.1 Natural Antibacterials

Most natural antibacterials are derived from animal and plant extracts, which are organic antibacterials. The advantages of natural antibacterial agents include: naturalness and environmental friendliness, non-toxicity and harmlessness from a wide range of sources, good biocompatibility.

Table 2-1 Natural Antibacterials

2.2 Inorganic antibacterial agents

Inorganic antibacterials are basically antibacterials made using bactericidal or antibacterial properties of silver, copper, zinc, titanium, mercury, lead, and other metals and their ions. Particular attention should be paid to antibacterial agents containing elements such as mercury. and lead, which are highly toxic, cannot be used in normal situations. The most widely used are three types containing metal ions, photocatalysis and metal oxides.

Table 2-2 Inorganic antibacterial agents

2.3 Organic small molecule antibacterial agents

Commonly used organic small molecular weight antibacterial agents mainly include quaternary ammonium salts, phenols, ureas, guanidines, heterocycles, organometallic compounds, etc., which are effective against Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria (such as Escherichia coli). ), fungi and other bacteria have a very good antibacterial effect and are often used as main anti-mold, antibacterial agents and deodorants.

Table 2-3 Organic small molecule antibacterial agents

2.4 Organic polymeric antibacterial agent

According to various antibacterial groups, there are currently many studies of organic polymer antibacterial agents, such as quaternary ammonium salt, chitosan and its derivatives, guanidine salt, etc., which have advantages of various types, strong bactericidal action . power and stable operation Quaternary ammonium salts are most commonly used antimicrobial agents.

Figure 2. Quaternary ammonium antibacterial agent

2.5 Antibacterial complex

At present, there are several kinds of compound antibacterial agents combined together, such as inorganic/inorganic, organic/inorganic, and organic/organic antibacterial agents. In compounding form, antibacterial agent can develop its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, and has a synergistic effect, so that antibacterial performance of material can be improved and antibacterial time of material can be correspondingly extended.

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