Improvement of biofouling resistance on bacterial cellulose membranes

• Antifouling bacterial cellulose (BC) membranes were prepared by two methods.
• Simple coating BC in polyethylene glycol (PEG) improved >30% antifouling effect.
• Specific grafting with mPEG resulted in >70% fouling resistance.
• Significant antifouling improvements showed new direction for biomaterials.

Bacterial cellulose possesses excellent biocompatibility and mechanical strength that show great potentials for biomaterial applications. In this study, the surface modifications of bacterial cellulose (BC) membranes were facilitated using either simple coating or chemical grafting methods. The surface coating method is to simply immobilize BC membranes with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) solutions of concentration from 1 to 10%, followed by post-treatment with argon (Ar) plasma. The chemical method involved grafting mPEG (monofunctional methyl ether PEG) on BCs. The outcomes of surface modifications were characterized by surface chemical compositions (electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), and surface morphology (atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)). The effects of resistance to biofouling were verified by quantifying the adsorption of proteins and mammalian cells. The results showed that the PEG coating on BCs improved the resistance to cell adhesion by more than 30%. On the other hand, the specific chemical grafting resulted in a particularly high resistance to biofouling that the density of adherent cells reduced by more than 70% when compared to that on pristine BC. We have demonstrated that the two proposed methods were effective for the preparation of bioinert BC membranes with great potentials for applications in biomaterials and tissue engineering.

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