AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Biomaterial Interfaces Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session BI-WeM

Paper BI-WeM1
Real Time Analysis of Polymer Film Integrity Upon Exposure to Bacteria and Aqueous Medium

Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 8:00 am, Room 108

Session: Cells at Interfaces
Presenter: Daniel Barlow, Naval Research Laboratory
Authors: D.E. Barlow, Naval Research Laboratory
J.C. Biffinger, Naval Research Laboratory
E.R. Petersen, Nova Research, Inc.
J.N. Russell, Naval Research Laboratory
P.E. Pehrsson, Naval Research Laboratory
W.J. Goodson, Air Force Resarch Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Polymer coatings are of great importance for protecting and imparting specific properties at the surfaces of man-made structures, but can be affected in many ways by the natural environments they must withstand. We have studied the effects of aqueous medium exposure and biofilm formation on antistatic polyurethane coatings in real time using in situ ATR-FTIR. The results show that the coatings are susceptible to water permeation and swelling, and deuterium exchange was also shown to occur within the films upon D2O exposure. When exposed to Pseudomonas fluorescens in M9 minimal medium, the coating interface became compromised as the pyruvate carbon source was depleted. Reasons for these changes will be discussed, including the role of water permeation and the potential for the bacteria to use the coating as a carbon source. While ATR-FTIR has been used in the past to study biofilm growth, these results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the method for assessing substrate impact, an often overlooked factor.