The Use of Low‐Quality Cotton‐Derived Cellulose Films as Templates for In Situ Conductive Polymer Synthesis as Promising Biomaterials in Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Here, the use of cellulose films (CFs) produced from low‐quality cotton is reported as a template for in situ synthesis of well‐known conductive polymers, e.g., polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPY) via oxidative polymerization. Three successive monomer loading/polymerization cycles of aniline (ANI) and pyrrole (PY) within CFs as PANI@CF or PPY@CF are carried out to increase the amount of conductive polymer content. The contact angle (CA) for three times ANI and PPY loaded and polymerized CFs as 3PANI@CF and 3PPY@CF are determined as 26.3±2.8 and 42.3±0.6 degrees, respectively. As the electrical conductivity is increased with increased number of conductive polymer synthesis within CF, the higher conductivity values, 3×10−4±8.1×10−5 S.cm−1 and 2.1×10−3±5.8×10−4 S.cm−1, respectively are measured for 3PANI@CF and 3PPY@CF composites. It is found that PANI@CF composites are hemolytic, whereas PPY@CF composites are not at 1 mg mL−1 concentrations. All PPY@CF composites exhibit better biocompatibility than PANI@CF composites on L929 fibroblast cells with more than 70±8% viability at 1 mg of CF‐based conductive polymer composites. Moreover, MIC and MBC values of 3PPY@CF composites for Escherichia coli (ATCC8739) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC6538) are determined as 2.5 and 5.0 mg.mL−1, whereas these values are estimated as 5 and 10 mg.mL−1 for Candida albicans (ATCC10231).