Constructing Acrylate Copolymer Microspheres with Anisotropic Wrinkled Surface for Conjugating Antibacterial AgNPs

Recently, anisotropic particles have attracted attention because their unique topology, functions and wide applications. Here, a new type of acrylate copolymer microspheres (AcPMs) with anisotropic wrinkled surface was synthesized with conventional monomers through two-step self-assembly in one-pot with regulating reaction media. First, butyl acrylate (BA), methyl methacrylate (MMA) and methacrylic acid (MAA) were copolymerized in EtOH/H2O solvent. Second, styrene (St) and BA were further copolymerized with increasing H2O proportion in solution, which enable AcPMs with emulsifiability. Its structure and morphology were characterized by FT-IR, SEM, XRD and DLS. The surface-wrinkled and anisotropic AcPMs was used as carrier to conjugate with AgNPs by in-situ reduction of silver ions (Ag+), which afforded the AcPMs conjugating AgNPs (AgNPs@AcPMs), and it presented an excellent antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli. Hence, AcPMs revealed strong potential in the biomedical fields.