Plastic material with antibacterial and bactericidal properties

Plastics have entered more and more people's lives, but plastics in general are prone to contaminate and breed a variety of microorganisms, including pathogenic bacteria, and cause harm to human health. As people pay more attention to the health environment, the safety and health of plastic products has become a topic of concern to everyone. Antibacterial plastics have emerged as a result.
Antimicrobial plastic is a new type of material with antibacterial and bactericidal properties, which can keep the material clean and reduce cross-infection caused by using plastic products. In some developed countries in Europe and America, people have already used antibacterial plastics more or less on telephone handsets, computer keyboards, and handrails of buses. At present, antibacterial plastics have begun to be used in large-scale home appliances, communication equipment, and automobile manufacturing. .
Plastics can be antibacterial because of the addition of antibacterial agents during their production. With this method, the amount of the antibacterial agent is large and the cost is increased. In order to reduce the cost, the antibacterial agent with extremely fine particles can be made into a spray liquid and sprayed on the surface of the plastic mold. During the molding process, the antibacterial agent penetrates into the surface of the plastic product, and after appropriate heat treatment, the antibacterial agent is combined with the plastic product.
Antibacterial agents for plastics are divided into organic, inorganic and natural three major categories. Organic antibacterial agents are mainly composed of organic acids, phenols, and alcohols. They have strong bactericidal power and good efficacy. However, they produce irritating odors during processing, they are easy to migrate in plastics and have poor heat resistance. Natural and polymeric antibacterial agents have not been used in large-scale applications in plastics due to poor heat resistance and processing difficulties. The use of these antibacterial agents in combination with inorganic antibacterial agents can combine the advantages of both, with both the immediateness and sustainability of organics and the safety and durability of inorganic antibacterial agents. Inorganic antibacterial agents are metal, metal ions such as silver, copper, zinc, etc., which have antibacterial ability, and are supported on an inorganic carrier, and the carrier is used for sustained release to achieve antibacterial activity. Its carrier is mainly zeolite, titanium dioxide, zirconium phosphate, silica gel and so on. Since the silver ion has a small toxicity, strong antibacterial ability, and it is difficult to accumulate in the human body, it is currently commercialized and the silver-based antibacterial agent has become the most widely used antibacterial agent.
From the prospect of development, the use of nano-technology modified inorganic antibacterial agent is the most popular. Due to the ultra-fine particle size, these antibacterial agents increase the contact area with bacteria, and can penetrate the bacterial cell wall into the cell body, destroy the activity of cell synthesis enzymes, and make cells lose their ability to divide and proliferate and die. Therefore, the functional nano inorganic antibacterial agent has extremely excellent antibacterial efficiency, and is safe, non-toxic, long-lasting, and has a sustained release effect, and has the light stability and thermal stability unmatched by ordinary silver antibacterial agents. In recent years, there have been advances in the use of nano-semiconductor particles for photo-catalytic sterilization. The most important feature of this antibacterial agent is that it not only kills bacteria, but also completely degrades organic substances, thus avoiding "white pollution."
The development and application of antibacterial plastics in our country is constantly evolving. The National Engineering Research Center of Engineering Plastics has obtained antibacterial, non-discoloring and low-cost composite inorganic antibacterial agents through ion exchange and multi-layer coating technology, and manufactures antibacterial plastics and their products through the unique antibacterial masterbatch technology. Strengthen the exertion of antibacterial power. After years of research, the center and the Haier Group, the first to launch domestic antibacterial home appliances products. Xiaoya Electric Group also applies nano-antibacterial materials to washing machines and other fields. However, as a whole, the development and application of antibacterial plastics in China needs to be strengthened. There are many manufacturers of toys in our country. In addition to domestic sales, the export volume is very large. According to statistics, the amount of plastic raw materials required by the domestic toy industry is approximately 1.5 million tons per year. This industry can use a lot of imported raw materials, domestic raw materials used very little, the reason is that foreign toys are strict health and safety standards, including the use of toys will not cause bacterial infection, and China's antibacterial plastics for the toy industry can not meet Requirements, so that manufacturers have to seek raw materials abroad. Actively develop anti-bacterial plastics, and relevant units should make efforts.