Modification of cotton fabric with Natural antimicrobial agents for Ecofriendly protective textiles

Abstract

In recent time‘s health and hygiene issues have achieved the greatest attention among the awareness people of all over the world. Health and hygiene are the primary obligations for human beings to live comfortably and work with maximum safety. The aim of the present work is to develop environment friendly protective textiles using Aloe vera, chitosan and sericin on bleached cotton woven fabrics for medical and health care apparel against gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria. Aloe vera, chitosan and silk sericin are natural biopolymer which exhibited different significant biological property. Aloe vera extract was prepared from Aloe vera leaves through methanol solvent using a rotary evaporator. Chitosan was made from shrimp shell through several steps of alkali and acid treatments and silk sericin powder was obtained from a boiled water solution of silk cocoons through ethanol precipitation. Extracted Aloe vera, chitosan and sericin powder were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), UV-visible spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction (XRD). Solubility, degree of deacetylation, antibacterial activity, antioxidant property and UV protection factor were also analyzed. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to assay the antimicrobial activity. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals. Chitosan was found to have a 90% degree of deacetylation.-----