Development of functional hybrid cotton fabrics by coating with SiO₂and ZrO₂/SiO₂composites

Abstract

The silica (SiO 2 ) sol and hybrid zirconia (ZrO 2 )/SiO 2 sol were used to coat cotton fabrics using the pad-dry-cure method to improve their physical and functional properties. The physical properties of coated and uncoated fabrics, such as tensile strength, tear strength, crease recovery angle, air permeability and whiteness index, were tested as per the standard test methods. The wash durability of the coating on the fabric was also analysed after five and 10 wash cycles. The observed results show that the ZrO 2 /SiO 2 -coated fabric has better physical properties than SiO 2 -coated and uncoated fabrics. In addition, an antibacterial activity test confirms that the SiO 2 -coated fabric possesses higher antibacterial properties against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus than the ZrO 2 /SiO 2 -coated fabrics.

Potential Application Techniques for Antimicrobial Textile Finishes

“…This method has shown good efficacy and durability even after several washes. Examples are ionic silver or silver-based compounds in silica matrix [11,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], Zin based [17,22,23,[38][39][40] and Titanium based [41][42][43]. Furthermore, interactions between fiber surface and incorporated hydrosol containing antimicrobial agent can be efficiently tailor by a suitable cross-linker that persist the binding of agent on to fiber, e.g., attachment of titania hydrosol on to cellulose fiber via crosslinking of 1,2,3,4-butancetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) Figure 4 & 5; [44].…”