Composite Coating for the Food Industry Based on Fluoroplast and ZnO-NPs: Physical and Chemical Properties, Antibacterial and Antibiofilm Activity, Cytotoxicity

Bacterial contamination of meat products during its preparation at the enterprise is an important problem for the global food industry. Cutting boards are one of the main sources of infection. In order to solve this problem, the creation of mechanically stable coatings with antibacterial activity is one of the most promising strategies. For such a coating, we developed a composite material based on “liquid” Teflon and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs). The nanoparticles obtained with laser ablation had a rod-like morphology, an average size of ~60 nm, and a ζ-potential of +30 mV. The polymer composite material was obtained by adding the ZnO-NPs to the polymer matrix at a concentration of 0.001–0.1% using the low-temperature technology developed by the research team. When applying a composite material to a surface with damage, the elimination of defects on a micrometer scale was observed. The effect of the composite material on the generation of reactive oxygen species (H2O2, •OH), 8-oxoguanine in DNA in vitro, and long-lived reactive protein species (LRPS) was evaluated. The composite coating increased the generation of all of the studied compounds by 50–200%. The effect depended on the concentration of added ZnO-NPs. The antibacterial and antibiofilm effects of the Teflon/ZnO NP coating against L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, and S. typhimurium, as well as cytotoxicity against the primary culture of mouse fibroblasts, were studied. The conducted microbiological study showed that the fluoroplast/ZnO-NPs coating has a strong bacteriostatic effect against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. In addition, the fluoroplast/ZnO-NPs composite material only showed potential cytotoxicity against primary mammalian cell culture at a concentration of 0.1%. Thus, a composite material has been obtained, the use of which may be promising for the creation of antibacterial coatings in the meat processing industry.