Low temperature Plasma processing for fabricating metal nanoparticles coated antimicrobial surfaces for potential biomedical applications

Plasma surface modification is a facile surface modification technique that has been employed for decades for modifying the surface properties of biomaterials. The nondestructive and in-situ sterilization capabilities of this technique make it an attractive candidate for modifying the surface properties of biomaterials without compromising bulk properties. Currently, antimicrobial metallic nanoparticles-based surface coating is prepared by reducing the metallic salt using reducing agent through wet chemistry process. This process is time consuming and multistep. Hence a greener and efficient method of fabricating antimicrobial metallic nanoparticles coated surfaces will be much appreciated in the current state of biomedical research. In the present work, we report a simple green plasma-based method of producing copper and silver nanoparticles coated polymer surfaces by reducing the metallic salts (Ag⁺¹, Cu²⁺) with low temperature hydrogen plasma treatment. This reduction process was found to be efficient in producing metallic nanostructures on the surface of hydrophilic cellulose paper surface. The morphology and distribution of the metallic nanostructures formed on cellulose paper surface can be controlled by varying the timing of hydrogen plasma exposure. Such facile method of producing metallic coatings such as Ag, and Cu may be extended to tissue engineered scaffolds which may have potential application in biomedical research.