| Summary: | Nanoparticles have been significantly employed in the number, variety, and function to create advanced materials with antibacterial capability. Despite considerable recent progress in the development of advanced material technology, the quest to fabricate optimized antibacterial materials remains a high research priority in biomedical and food packaging industries. This thesis presents a study to characterize and optimized antibacterial capability of liquid silicone rubber (LSR) and nanoparticle (NP) composites. Over the past decades, inorganic NPs, particularly metal oxide NPs, have attracted a great attention because of their capability of strong inhibitory and bactericidal effects. Three representative NPs (e.g., ZnO, TiO₂, and Ag) with different concentrations capable of achieving antibacterial status were tested. To optimize various parameters such as types of materials, concentrations, and processing condition, a high-throughput platforms using microsystems technology are desirable, which enables researchers to minimize the usage of materials and conduct multiple experiments at a time. The antibacterial efficiency of the fabricated LSR/NP nanocomposites were evaluated through the high-throughput microfluidic platforms and viable counts technique. LSR/TiO2 nanocomposites demonstrated the best antibacterial nanocomposite. Also, the viability of E. coli, which were exposed to LSR/NPs on the microfluidic platform, was assessed and studied using the live/dead assay method. It was also found from the both methods that the antibacterial capability of the nanocomposites was decreased after 15 wt%. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Engineering, School of (Okanagan) === Graduate
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