Physicochemical surface properties of bacterial cellulose/polymethacrylate nanocomposites: an approach by inverse gas...

Nanocomposites of poly(glycidyl methacrylate) and bacterial cellulose (BC), or poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate) and BC were produced via the in-situ polymerization of methacrylic monomers, inside the BC 3D network. The nanocomposites surface properties were evaluated by inverse gas chromatography (IGC). The dispersive component of surface energy (γ_s^d) varied between 35.64 - 83.05 mJ m^-2 at 25 °C. The surface of the different nanocomposites has a predominant basic character (K_b/K_a = 4.20-4.31). Higher specific interactions with polar probes were found for the nanocomposite bearing pendant epoxide groups, that apart from the low surface area (S_BET = 0.83 m² g^-1) and monolayer capacity (n_m = 2.18 μmol g^-1), exhibits a high value of γ_s^d (88.19 mJ m^-2 at 20 °C). These results confirm the potential of IGC to differentiate between nanocomposites with different surface functional groups and to predict their potential interactions with living tissues, body fluids and other materials.