Textile Finishing of Antifouling Functional Polymers Coating

Abstract

Textile market is among top economy activity around the world. Among various areas of technical sectors, technical textile is perhaps the most demanding requirement to meet desire applications. The unprecedented increase of textile material to undergo fouling causes the textile market leads to major concern regarding the development of antifouling finished textile. Textile wears next to the skin, thus upon fouling contributes a major role in the spread of infectious diseases. This challenge can be addressed through combination of modern technology to develop antifouling finishing based on nanomaterials. In consideration of this, nanoprecipitation technique was employed in present work to develop antifouling polymeric formulation (APF) for the control of fouling activity. In the first phase cefotaxime as, antifouling functional moiety was selected to encapsulate inside the biodegradable polymeric shell. The optimization of blank and drug loaded polymeric nano formulation was done by varying the concentration of aqueous and organic phases. Initially the aqueous phase was optimized by dissolving the varying concentration of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as nonionic surfactant in 10 ml deionized water and organic phase was optimized by varying concentration of polycaprolactone PCL in 2 ml dichloromethane DCM. After optimizing aqueous /organic phases, the other process parameters, (stirring time, temperature, and injection rate) were optimize. The governing factors for the stability and size of polymeric nanoparticles were the choice of surfactant, the aqueous/organic ratios, and other process parameters. The optimized blank and drug loaded formulations were characterized for average size charge and zeta potential through dynamic light scattering DLS. The size and charge of the blank and drug loaded polymeric nanoparticles was found to be 200 nm and -16.8 mV while, 216 nm and -11.2 mV respectively. Surface and structural morphology was confirmed through scanning electron microscopy SEM and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy FTIR. In-vitro antibacterial activity was analyzed against two clinical strains Escherichia coli (ATCC 8739) Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 6538), through well diffusion assay with 99.9 % reduction in bacterial colonies. In the second phase, nano encapsulated antifouling polymeric formulation (AFP) was coated on cotton textile fabric through layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembled multilayers coating technique. Therefore, antibacterial finishing was employed on cotton textile substrate by alternate dipping in oppositely charges polyelectrolytes solutions. The textile fabric was initially dipped in poly (diallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride) (PDAC) solution followed by washing twice in two separate beakers to furnish a single layer of positive charge and then dipping in antifouling polymeric formulation (APF) followed by subsequent washing to accomplish a stable 1 bilayer of opposite charges. The deposition of 1 to 20 bilayers were deposited by repeating the cyclical procedure that enhance the roughness. The coated and uncoated textile samples were characterized for surface morphology, roughness, and thickness through scanning electron microscopy SEM, Optical Profilometry, OP and Atomic force microscopy AFM. The surface hydrophobicity was analyzed through drop shape analyzed by measuring contact angle , which varies significantly with subsequent adoption of 1 to 20 bilayers. The in-vitro antibacterial assay was qualitatively analyzed against two bacterial strains gram-positive S. aureus and gram negative E. coli through agar disk diffusion. The significant zone of inhibition was observed against each strain around the coated textile sample as a function of concentration and deposition number of bilayers. The resultant antifouling finished textile has potential to use in biomedical and industrial applications. Moreover, the antifouling polymeric formulation (APF) could potential be highly useful for various type of textile substrate beside cotton.