Polypropylene (PP) is traditionally used in the production of medical devices, such as catheters, dialyzers, syringes due to its good chemical and thermal resistance, biocompatibility, and low cost. Sterilization can however damage these devices, when the polymer additive releases into physiological fluids, thereby harming the patient health. This article proposes to deposit biocompatible a‐C:H:SiO_x coatings onto PP surfaces and studies the coating stability after chemical sterilization. Five different chemical sterilizers, namely, hydrogen peroxide, ethanol, miramistin, formaldehyde, and ethylene oxide are used to compare their effect on the coating stability on the PP substrate. Untreated and sterilized samples are incubated in a liquid synthetic nutrient to obtain extracts that are used for sterility testing and determining the degree of interaction of samples with the nutrient medium. The changes in the coating functional groups and surface morphology are examined by using the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and the scanning electron microscopy, respectively. It is shown that the a‐C:H:SiO_x coating has a protective effect on the PP substrates subjected to chemical sterilization. The experiment results clearly showed that the ethanol sterilization causes the most serious changes in the structure of PP, and also leads to the barrier coating failure. On the other hand, ethylene oxide sterilization has a minimal effect on the structure of both uncoated and coated PP substrates.

中文翻译：

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聚丙烯上的aC：H：SiOx涂层对化学灭菌的稳定性

聚丙烯（PP）由于其良好的耐化学性和耐热性，生物相容性和低成本，传统上用于生产医疗器械，例如导管，透析器，注射器。但是，当聚合物添加剂释放到生理液中时，灭菌会损坏这些设备，从而损害患者的健康。本文建议沉积生物相容的a-C：H：SiO _x将涂料涂在PP表面上，并研究化学灭菌后的涂料稳定性。使用五种不同的化学消毒剂，即过氧化氢，乙醇，miramistin，甲醛和环氧乙烷，来比较它们对PP基材上涂层稳定性的影响。将未经处理和灭菌的样品在液体合成营养液中孵育，以获得用于无菌测试和确定样品与营养液相互作用程度的提取物。分别通过傅立叶变换红外光谱法和扫描电子显微镜检查涂层官能团和表面形态的变化。结果表明a‐C：H：SiO _x涂层对经过化学灭菌的PP基材具有保护作用。实验结果清楚地表明，乙醇灭菌会导致PP结构发生最严重的变化，并导致阻隔涂层失效。另一方面，环氧乙烷灭菌对未涂覆和涂覆的PP基材的结构影响最小。