T HE MAIN goal of the present work is to investigate the influence of depositing copper film on different unfinished textiles, namely; polyester, cotton and polyester/cotton, on their antimicrobial activity. Ion beam of argon gas is used for sputtering of copper target to deposit a thin film of copper on the textiles surface. The samples were characterized by SEM, FTIR, and XRD. The results show that copper nanoparticles are smoothly deposited onto the surface with no change on the chemical or the physical structure of the textiles. Ac conductivity was measured in the frequency range of 50Hz-5MHz and showed a slight increase with Cu nanoparticles deposition. The antimicrobial activity test showed an enhancement of the textiles ability to inhibit gram-positive S. aureus and gram-negative E. coli after copper deposition and the inhibition is higher for E. coli. Moreover, the results show the highest reduction ability of a modified cotton sample for both types of bacteria.
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