Process of Making Antimicrobial Polymers from Quaternary Ammonium Maleic Di-Ester Surfmers and Methyl Methacrylate by Emulsion Polymerization

The purpose of this article is to develop degradable quaternary ammonium polymerizable surfactants and their copolymers with methyl methacrylate. Such polymers work efficiently against harmful microbes. The antimicrobial properties were tested against recombinant E. coli to understand its efficiency over superbugs. E. coli culture was developed by introducing pET22b vector having ampicillin resistance gene. Current research paper also focuses on novel synthetic route in obtaining quaternary ammonium maleates. Both the surfmer and copolymer were characterized by spectral methods such as FTIR and NMR. Surface properties of the polymers were studied using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique was employed to study the extent of bacterial viable cell damage. The degradable property of the surfmers was studied by using FTIR-technique. The thermal properties of the polymer were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).