Different studies have shown that the incorporation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) enables the production of composite materials with enhanced properties, which can find important applications in the biomedical field. In the present work, CNT/PDMS composite materials have been prepared to evaluate the effects of pristine and chemically functionalized CNT incorporation into PDMS on the composite’s thermal, electrical, and surface properties on bacterial adhesion in dynamic conditions. Initial bacterial adhesion was studied using a parallel-plate flow chamber assay performed in conditions prevailing in urinary tract devices (catheters and stents) using Escherichia coli as a model organism and PDMS as a control due to its relevance in these applications. The results indicated that the introduction of the CNTs in the PDMS matrix yielded, in general, less bacterial adhesion than the PDMS alone and that the reduction could be dependent on the surface chemistry of CNTs, with less adhesion obtained on the composites with pristine rather than functionalized CNTs. It was also shown CNT pre-treatment and incorporation by different methods affected the electrical properties of the composites when compared to PDMS. Composites enabling a 60% reduction in cell adhesion were obtained by CNT treatment by ball-milling, whereas an increase in electrical conductivity of seven orders of magnitude was obtained after solvent-mediated incorporation. The results suggest even at low CNT loading values (1%), these treatments may be beneficial for the production of CNT composites with application in biomedical devices for the urinary tract and for other applications where electrical conductance is required.

中文翻译：

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碳纳米管/聚（二甲基硅氧烷）复合材料，可减少细菌粘附。

不同的研究表明，将碳纳米管（CNT）掺入聚（二甲基硅氧烷）（PDMS）中可以生产具有增强性能的复合材料，这可以在生物医学领域中找到重要的应用。在目前的工作中，已经制备了CNT / PDMS复合材料，以评估在动态条件下将原始的和化学功能化的CNT掺入PDMS中对复合材料的热，电和表面特性对细菌粘附的影响。使用平行板流室测定法研究了初始细菌粘附，该实验在使用大肠杆菌的泌尿道器械（导管和支架）中普遍存在的条件下进行由于它们在这些应用中具有相关性，因此可以将其作为模型生物，并将PDMS作为对照。结果表明，将碳纳米管引入PDMS基质中通常比单独使用PDMS产生更少的细菌粘附，减少的程度可能取决于碳纳米管的表面化学性质，与纯净的复合材料相比，对复合材料的粘附较少功能化的CNT。还显示，与PDMS相比，CNT预处理和通过不同方法掺入会影响复合材料的电性能。通过球磨法进行的CNT处理获得了使细胞粘附力降低60％的复合材料，而在溶剂介导的掺入后，导电率提高了七个数量级。结果表明，即使在较低的CNT负载值（1％）下，