Washable Antibacterial Modified Bio-based PA56 with High Toughness

An effective method was developed for the preparation of a washable antibacterial modified bio-based polyamide 56 (PA56) with high toughness by a simple reactive extrusion technique. In this work, polypentamethylene guanidine hydrochloride (PPMG), as a bio-based antibacterial reagent, was successfully grafted onto a bio-based PA56 polymer. The micromorphology of the samples was studied by scanning electron microscopy, which proved that the addition of ethylene-methyl acrylate-glycidyl methacrylate terpolymer (EMA) greatly improved the compatibility. In addition, the mechanical properties of the modified antibacterial bio-based polyamide were improved, especially the impact toughness of PA56-g-1.0 (1.0 wt % PPMG and 1.0 wt % EMA) could be 48% higher than pure PA56. When the content of PPMG was higher than 1.0%, the inhibition rates of the products against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus both reached over 99.99%, and such a high inhibition rate would still maintain after 30 washing times with hot water (90 °C) and detergent.