Iran Polym J DOI 10.1007/s13726-016-0421-0 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER Polyethylene materials with multifunctional surface properties by electrospraying chitosan/vitamin E formulation destined to biomedical and food packaging applications Elena Stoleru 1 · Silvestru B. Munteanu 2 · Raluca P. Dumitriu 1 · Adina Coroaba 1 · Mioara Drobota ˘ 1 · Lidija Fras Zemljic 3 · Gina M. Pricope 4 · Cornelia Vasile 1 Received: 27 April 2015 / Accepted: 2 February 2016 © Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute 2016 contact angle titration, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and antibacterial and antioxidative tests. The electrosprayed bioactive coatings exhibit antibacterial, antioxidant and pH responsive activity. The pH responsiveness was evidenced by switching from hydrophilic to hydrophobic surface at pH ≈ 6. The chitosan/vitamin E modified PE substrate inhibited the growth for three different bacterial strains (Gram-negative and Gram-positive) and presented good antioxidative properties, acting as DPPH radical scaveng- ing surfaces. Moreover, the new obtained materials present good stability and maintain their antioxidative capacity even after subjecting to desorption in harsh medium because of relative strong electrostatic and hydrogen bonds interac- tions between components of the formulation. The obtained materials can find application in food packaging or in medi- cal field where synergistic action of these bioactive com- pounds is required. Keywords Polyethylene · Chitosan · Electrospraying · Antioxidant · Stimuli-sensitive surface · Food packaging Introduction Active packaging is a class of packaging which interacts directly with the packed material and/or its surroundings to improve one or more aspects of the quality or safety prop- erties of the products [1, 2]. A number of techniques have been explored to combine active compounds into pack- aging systems and then to impart them antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Antimicrobial coatings gathered much attention lately due to the boost in implant technol- ogy, and their clinical usage, on one hand, and the medical device related infections, on the other hand [3]. Moreover, coatings combining antimicrobial effects together with Abstract A dual-bioactive layer based on antimicrobial chitosan and antioxidant vitamin E was immobilized onto PE surface using electrospraying as coating technique. Covalent bonding of the antibacterial/antioxidant layer was achieved through amide bonds or carbamate linkage using both 1-ethyl-3-[3-dimethylaminopropyl]carbodiimide hydrochloride and N-hydroxysuccinimide or carbonyldiimi- dazole coupling agents, respectively. The chitosan/vitamin E formulation was characterized by rheological measure- ments. The vitamin E addition in chitosan matrix leads to changes in chitosan rheological properties, such as viscos- ity decrease with increasing vitamin E content, change of the gel-like behavior to a fluid-like behavior, which further influences the electrospraying process and deposited coat- ing morphology. The new stratified hybrid materials with improved properties have been characterized by different techniques as attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform IR spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spec- troscopy (XPS), polyelectrolyte and potentiometric titration, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13726-016-0421-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Cornelia Vasile cvasile@icmpp.ro 1 “Petru Poni” Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Romanian Academy, 41A Gr. Ghica Voda Alley, 700487 Iasi, Romania 2 Faculty of Physics, “Al. I. Cuza” University, Bvd. Carol I, 11, Iasi, Romania 3 Faculty of Chemical Engineering, University of Maribor, Smetanova ulica 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia 4 Veterinary and Food Safety Laboratory, Food Safety Department, Iasi, Romania