Crosslinked free fatty acids for use in antibacterial medical device implants

Technical Summary:

Incorporating Free Fatty Acids into composite materials via covalent crosslinking with elemental sulfur substantially improves on oxidative crosslinking methods that resulted in weakly bound molecules. Alone, FFAs and triglycerides do not posses adequate strength to serve in biomaterial applications. The former strategy to increase their strength involved the production of oxygen-crosslinked chains, the resultant produce still being susceptible to degredation and provoking an inflammatory immune response. Using elemental sulfur to crosslink FFAs via a thiol-ene type reaction generates FFA/S8 composites instead, free from the hazards of degradation and immune response activation, as well as being inherently antimicrobial, all of which are excellent qualities for use in a medical implant device.