Fabrication of novel antimicrobial poly(vinyl chloride) plastic for automobile interior applications

With the fast development of auto industry, more and more new functional materials are developed to satisfy our life. Auto interior materials are usually suffered from the attack of bacteria and therefore affect people. In this work, we reported on the fabrication of novel antimicrobial poly(vinyl chloride) plastic (PVCP-I, PVCP-II) with antimicrobial halloysite nanotubes and SiO2/ZnO/ZnS/Ag2S nano-composites as additives, respectively, and then these two kinds of novel antimicrobial poly(vinyl chloride) PVC materials were applied to automobile interior. Firebrake® ZB was used as the fire retardant and the results showed that the prepared PVC materials have excellent non-flammability properties. The oxygen indexes of traditional PVCP, PVCP-I and PVCP-II were 30.1, 31.9 and 32.5 %, respectively. PVC antimicrobial materials were prepared by coating on the special paper. PVCP-I and PVCP-II could kill more than 99 % of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus with concentration of about 7 × 107 and 4 × 107 CFU mL−1, respectively. Mechanical properties and thermal stability were also investigated to study the physical characteristics of the prepared PVC plastic. The formation of nano-additives was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy techniques. Antimicrobial capacity was used as a probe to evaluate the potential applications of prepared PVC-I and PVC-II materials in antimicrobial automobile interiors. Also, the material was characterized by thermo-gravimetric analysis; the result showed that PVCP-I and PVCP-II have excellent thermo-stability. What counts is the simple processing and outstanding characteristic of the PVCP material and great application potential may have in store for the obtained antimicrobial PVC-I and PVCP-II.