Abstract
Cotton-fabric-supported silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have aroused great attention due to their remarkable physical and chemical properties and excellent broad-spectrum antibacterial performance.In this work, a surface dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma method is developed and employed to prepare cotton fabric supported Ag NPs (Ag/cotton) for the first time. UV-Vis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results confirm the formation of Ag NPs. TEM images show that the size of Ag NPs is in the range 4.8–5.3 nm. Heat-sensitive cotton fabrics are not destroyed by surface DBD plasma according to FTIR and XRDresults. Wash fastness of the Ag/cotton samples is investigated using ultrasonic treatment for 30 min and it is shown that the Ag NPs possess good adhesion to the cotton fabric according to UV-Vis spectra. Antibacterial activity of the Ag/cotton samples shows that obvious bacteriostasis loops are observed around the samples with the appearance of both Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis). The average diameter of the bacteriostasis loops against both E. coli and B. subtilis becomes larger with an increasing silver loading amount.This work provides a universal, fast, simple, and environmentally-friendly cold plasma method for synthesizing Ag NPs on heat-sensitive materials at atmospheric pressure.
Highlights
Cotton fabrics are highly popular due to their excellent properties such as comfortability, air permeability, flexibility, bio-degradable ability, and good absorption of water
Xu et al [9] prepared antimicrobial cotton fabric by a one-pot modification process using a colloidal solution of Ag NPs via carboxymethyl chitosan (CMC), which was used as a binder and stabilizer
The color of the Ag/cotton samples has changed from colorless to yellow following surface dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma treatment; this is generally thought to be the color of metallic Ag NPs
Summary
Cotton fabrics are highly popular due to their excellent properties such as comfortability, air permeability, flexibility, bio-degradable ability, and good absorption of water. Pathogens breed quickly, send out an unpleasant odor, and lead to textile decoloration and value shrinking, which accelerates the cross-spread of infection and aggravates human health To solve these problems, great efforts have been devoted to modifying cotton fabrics by adding various antibacterial chemicals (including silver, copper, tungsten carbide, graphene derivatives, and tellurium, etc.) to improve their antibacterial activity [1,2,3,4,5]. In the case of the insitu reduction method, silver ions arefirst supported on cotton fabric and reduced by chemical reagents to metallic Ag NPs [13,14]. The loomstate- and scoured-cotton-fabric-supported Ag NPs exhibited excellent durability and antibacterial activity. More attention has been paid to environmentally-friendly preparation methods, such as the bio-synthesis method [16], photo-reduction method [17], and cold plasma method [1]
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