Highly transparent antibacterial polystyrene/styrene-butadiene block copolymer/polyhexamethylene guanidine composite
Abstract
The combination of transparency, antibacterial activity, and flexbility is of great importance for practical applications in industry. However, this remains a huge challenge to date. In this work, a ternary system of polystyrene (PS), styrene-butadiene block copolymer (SBC), and polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) is reported via a green melt blending method. Because of the excellent compatibility of the components, the elongation at break of the composite increased by 3.0%. The composite shows high optical transparency of 81.8% owing to the similar refractive index of PS, SBC, and PHMG. More importantly, the addition of 0.3 wt% PHMG endows the composite with splendid antibacterial property, which eliminates 99.9% of E. coli and restrains the formation of the biological membrane. The composite is expected to find promising applications in medical industry and electrical apparatus.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
