New compound to help make PPEs microbial resistant

New Delhi: The fight against the COVID pandemic has got a new weapon in its arsenal with scientists developing a compound that promises to help make PPEs microbial resistant.

Lignin, which is a natural and a nontoxic biopolymer, is an emerging material for developing coatings, films, gels, adhesives, and adsorbents. It also acts as a capping, stabilizing, and reducing agent for fabricating nanomaterials. In the new study, a team of researchers at the Department of Biotechnology’s Centre of Innovative and Applied Bioprocessing (DBT-CIAB), at Mohali have developed a lignin-based coating material, which when applied to a cotton cloth, was found to have antimicrobial properties.

The scientists started by developing a titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanocomposite by using lignin as the matrix.  The product exhibited better antioxidant and antimicrobial properties when compared with lignin alone or commercially available Titanium dioxide nanocomposites by themselves. Subsequently, they prepared a lignin-based coating material. The compound was doped with the newly developed lignin- TiO₂ nanocomposites and with the commercial TiO₂ nanoparticles.

Comparative studies were performed among all the lignin coatings, both doped and undoped. The analysis showed that the lignin coating consisting of 5% w/w lignin based TiO₂ nanocomposites exhibited promising antimicrobial potential.

A report on the findings has been published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, which is a journal of the American Chemical Society. The study team consisted of Jayeeta Bhaumik, Ravneet Kaur, Neeraj S. Thakur, and Sanjam Chandna.

(India Science Wire)