Facile design of antibacterial sheets of sacran and nanocellulose

Abstract

Synthetic materials cause considerable damage over long-term usage. Therefore, the multiple benefits of naturally-derived polymers are being acknowledged for sustainable material fabrication. We prepared hybrid hydrogel sheets of polysaccharides, sacran and nanocellulose as soothing wound dressings. Antibacterial activity was purveyed by introducing silver nanoparticles in the polysaccharide blend; it was further dried to a film and subsequently crosslinked via thermal annealing. This step provided physical-crosslink junctions in the matrix and firm lodging of the nanoparticles. At the same time, use of harmful chemicals was circumvented. The silver nanoparticle–polysaccharide hydrogels significantly reduce the viability of different bacteria and can potentially be applied as on-demand dressings.

Keywords

• Sacran
• Cellulose nanofiber
• Crosslinking
• Silver nanoparticles
• Hydrogel
• Antibacterial sheets