Polypropylene (PP) light weight meshes are commonly used as hernioplasty implants. Nevertheless, the growth of bacteria within textile knitted mesh intersections can occur after surgical mesh implantation, causing infections. Thus, bacterial reproduction has to be stopped in the very early stage of mesh implantation. Herein, novel antimicrobial PP meshes grafted with β-CD and complexes with triclosan were prepared for mesh infection prevention. Initially, PP mesh surfaces were functionalized with suitable cold oxygen plasma. Then, hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) was successfully grafted on the plasma-activated PP surfaces. Afterwards, β-CD was connected with the already HDI reacted PP meshes and triclosan, serving as a model antimicrobial agent, was loaded into the cyclodextrin (CD) cavity for desired antibacterial functions. The hydrophobic interior and hydrophilic exterior of β-CD are well suited to form complexes with hydrophobic host guest molecules. Thus, the prepared PP mesh samples, CD-TCL-2 and CD-TCL-6 demonstrated excellent antibacterial properties against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli that were sustained up to 11 and 13 days, respectively. The surfaces of chemically modified PP meshes showed dramatically reduced water contact angles. Moreover, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and Thermogravimetric (TGA) evidenced that there was no significant effect of grafted hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and CD on the structural and thermal properties of the PP meshes.
Keywords: antibacterial meshes; cyclodextrin grafting; guest molecule; oxygen plasma; polypropylene.