Synthesis of antibacterial polyether biguanide curing agent and its cured antibacterial epoxy resin

At present, bacteria continue to threaten human health, and the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics continues to increase, so the development of new antibacterial agents and antibacterial materials is increasingly important to ensure human health. In this paper, three polyether biguanide compounds with high antibacterial properties were synthesized by reacting polyetheramine T403 with o-tolylbiguanide, m-tolylbiguanide and p-tolylbiguanide (o-TTB, m-TTB and p-TTB), respectively. The antimicrobial performance of polyether biguanide against E. coli and S. aureus was evaluated using a minimum inhibitory concentration method, and the results showed that the synthesized polyether biguanide exhibited efficient and broad-spectrum antimicrobial effects. Among them, o-tolyl biguanide derivative o-TTB showed the best antimicrobial performance, with minimum inhibitory concentrations of 20 and 15 μg/mL against E. coli and S. aureus, respectively. Then, epoxy resin E51 was cured using the obtained TTB as a curing agent to prepare an epoxy resin with antibacterial properties. The inhibition of the growth of S. aureus by the cured o-TTB/E51 resin was investigated by incubating the cured epoxy resin with bacteria, and the results showed that the cured resin had a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of bacteria. The non-isothermal curing kinetics of the o-TTB/E51 system were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to determine the optimized curing reaction temperature, curing kinetic parameters and curing kinetics equation.