An imaging approach to assess the antimicrobial behavior of Ag-doped organic coatings

Silver nanocomposites represent an interesting material for biomedical applications thanks to their bacteriostatic properties. Ag-doped epoxy coatings seem a promising candidate in this field, also due to their easy production. Many are the possible techniques that enable researchers to characterize the antimicrobial behavior of materials, but most of them require specific equipment and expertise, often not present in material science laboratories. This paper describes a possible characterization which is based on a simple imaging system. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) micrographs are acquired in order to analyze the bacteria attachment on different samples, that is epoxy coatings containing silver nanoparticles or without their addition. The images are then processed by using a simple imaging algorithm which is based on the free OpenCv™ environment. The processing has been tailored to be able to work with SEM images acquired on isolating samples, which represent an additional difficulty if compared to uncoated metallic samples.