Durable antibacterial finish on cotton fabric using hydrogel–silver nanocomposite

Abstract

A new durable antibacterial cotton fabric was successfully prepared by free-radical graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and itaconic acid (IA) onto a cotton fabric in an aqueous medium. Ammonium persulfate (APS) was used as the initiator in the presence of a crosslinker, methylene bisacrylamide (MBA). The nanocomposite hydrogel was obtained from in situ formation of silver nanoparticles from reduction of silver cations by sodium borohydride. A proposed mechanism for nanocomposite formation was suggested and the effect of ratio of IA to AA on water absorbency discussed. FTIR, UV-Vis, X-ray, and scanning electron microscopy were employed to characterize the structure of the prepared superabsorbent. The antibacterial activity of the hydrogel was tested qualitatively and quantitatively. Results showed that the silver nanoparticle-loaded fabric has potent antibacterial activity to Escherichia coli Gramnegative bacteria.

Grafting of acrylic acid‐co‐itaconic acid onto ePTFE and characterization of water uptake by the graft copolymers

“…The equilibrium swelling of the grafts depends on the graft composition, as well as the pH and ionic strength of the sorbent. Hosseinzadeh and Mohammadi 25 also reported a maximum in the dependence of the equilibrium swelling of grafted cotton on the graft copolymer composition. However, these substrates are not nearly as inert towards grafting or as nonpolar as ePTFE, and extrapolation of these findings to ePTFE may therefore not be appropriate.…”

“…The equilibrium water uptake and the average number of water molecules per carboxyl group for the grafts at 25 C, calculated from the graft composition obtained using the AA and IA reactivity ratios, are presented in Table IV. In addition, to model physiological conditions, swelling measurements for the copolymer graft with X AA 5 0.7 were made in PBS (pH 7.4) at 37 C. The result obtained was Q e 5 780 6 90% (39 water molecules per carboxyl group) compared with a value of 630% for this copolymer graft in water at 25 C. It is known that Q e increases for AA hydrogels with an increase in the temperature or the pH.…”

“…Swelling measurements in water (see data in Table IV) were carried out on the AA1 and AA2 grafted samples at 25 C and yielded values of Q e of 790 6 30% and 660 6 60% (mass of water over mass of graft), respectively. However, it should be borne in mind that these equilibrium swelling measurements are subject to significant error because of the relatively small masses of the grafts and the correspondingly small water uptakes.…”

“…However, there have been some reports of AA-co-IA grafting onto other carbon-based polymers, including grafting on carboxymethyl cellulose, 22 collagen, 23,24 or cotton. 25 In these studies, the grafting was chemically initiated and the variables such as comonomer composition were studied and correlated with the kinetics of swelling of the grafts in water and ionic solutions. The equilibrium swelling of the grafts depends on the graft composition, as well as the pH and ionic strength of the sorbent.…”

“…The tubes were then placed in a water bath at a temperature of 62 6 0.2 C to initiate polymerization. Periodically an aliquot of 200 lL was sampled from each of the polymerizing mixtures and the sample rapidly quenched to 25 C by adding it to an NMR tube containing 1 mL of D 2 O to which a small amount of DO had been added. The 1 H NMR measurements (400 MHz Bruker AV NMR) were performed at room temperature using a 45 pulse angle and a recycle delay of 10 s in all cases.…”