Date of Award

Spring 5-2018

Degree Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

First Advisor

Derek Patton

Advisor Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) has brought the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance bacteria to the attention of the public and has expressed the need for the development of new methods of defense. In this direction, bioactive aldehyde essential oils have been shown to effectively act as antibiotic and antifungal agents. These bioactive compounds, when used in their pure form, are volatile and lack environmental stability. In this thesis, we describe the synthesis of pro-antimicrobial networks via degradable acetals (PANDAs) using thiol-ene photopolymerization. PANDAs were used as a new model for the high loading and release of bioactive aldehyde-containing compounds via network degradation in response to exposure to acidic pH. Herein, we report the synthesis of diallyl p-chlorobenzaldehyde derived PANDAs to release the antimicrobial form of p-chlorobenzaldehyde under mild conditions (pH 7.4/high humidity).

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