Open Access Conference Proceedings

Polyamide plays an important role in biomedical application such as suture material, coated textile against skin infection, wound dressing, catheters and bone tissue scaffolds. Surface modification of polyamide is very crucial factor to improve its performances by imparting desirable biomaterial properties. This report is focused on the efficient reduction of amide functional groups to secondary amine on Nylon 6 film surface with borane-tetrahydrofuran (BH3-THF) complex, followed by further alkylation. More precisely, we have studied the reaction of benzyl chloride (C6H5CH2Cl) in presence of potassium tert-butoxide (t-BuOK) on the modified Nylon 6 films. Thus, introduction of benzyl group to secondary amine of modified Nylon 6 has been accomplished. This type of transformation is expected to be generally applicable for functionalization of almost any polyamide. By using different alkylation reactions we will be able to tune the surface properties of polymers obtained for almost any applications. We also hope that polymers thus obtained will be biocompatible. The surface modifications were confirmed by both non-spectral methods and spectroscopic as well as microscopic analyses. Water contact angle (WCA) and free surface energy (FSE) measurements indicated the significant change in surface morphology that were established by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). We are firmly convinced of the future prospect for further surface modification of these functionalized nylon 6 films with high potential in the field of biomedical application.

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