Microstructure of Cu–Ag Uniform Nanoparticulate Films on Polyurethane 3D Catheters: Surface Properties

The preparation, characterization, and antibacterial testing of Cu-Ag sputtered polyurethane (PU) catheters are addressed in this study. PU catheters with different atomic ratios Cu:Ag have been sputtered and led to different optical properties as followed by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and the surface redox properties were also different for different Cu-Ag ratios as observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The surface atomic percentage concentration of the oxidized/reduced C-species originating from bacterial cultures before and after bacterial inactivation were determined on the Cu-Ag PU catheters. The crystallographic properties were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD-diffractogram showed the presence of Cu2O (111), Cu (200), CuO (020), and Ag (111) indicating that Cu nanoparticles present a more crystalline character compared to Ag nanoparticles. Increasing the percentage of Ag in the Cu-Ag films, bigger Ag-particle agglomerates were detected by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) microanalysis confirming the results obtained by AFM. The bacterial inactivation kinetics of the sputtered Cu-Ag films on PU catheters was investigated in detail. Quasi-instantaneous bacterial inactivation kinetics was induced by the sputtered films on PU catheters after optimization of the Cu-Ag film thickness.