Influence of Surface Morphology on the Antimicrobial Effect of Transition Metal Oxides in Polymer Surface

In this study, the physical properties of transition metal oxide surfaces were examined using scanning probe microscopic (SPM) techniques for elucidating the antimicrobial activity of molybdenum trioxide (MoO3), tungsten trioxide (WO3), and zinc oxide (ZnO) embedded into the polymers thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and polypropylene (PP). We utilized atomic force microscopy (AFM) in the contact imaging mode and its derivative single-pass Kelvin probe force microscopy for investigating samples that were presumably identical in their compositions, but showed different antimicrobial activity in bacterial adhesion tests. Our results revealed that surfaces with larger roughness and higher surface potential variation showed stronger antimicrobial activities compared to smoother and homogeneously charge-distributed surfaces. In addition, capacitance gradient (dC/dZ) measurements were performed to elucidate the antimicrobial activity arising from the different dielectric behavior of the transition metal oxides in this heterogeneous polymer surface. We found that the nano-scale exposure of transition metal oxides on polymer surfaces provided strong antimicrobial effects. Applications arising from our studies will be useful for public and healthcare environments.