Antimicrobial sustainable biopolymers for biomedical plastics applications – an overview

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the need for personal protective equipment (PPE), especially for medical personnel: face masks, full protective clothing, gloves and goggles. To date, they are usually made of thermoplastic polymers, such as polypropylene (PP). To reduce the risk of secondary infections it is essential to enhance the antimicrobial (especially antibacterial and antiviral) properties of the materials used in PPE. There are some attempts to modify materials by, for example, silver nanoparticles or zinc oxides. The increasing demand for personal protective equipment, mostly masks, leads to an increase of environmental problem of non-biodegradable wastes. Therefore some researches on use of safer for user’s health sustainable antimicrobial and biodegradable biopolymer fibers, such as cellulose, starch, chitosan, poly(lactic acid) (PLA) or poly(glycolic acid) (PGA), have been done. These biopolymers and their properties are discussed in this article.