Antimicrobial properties of treated cotton fabrics with non-toxic biopolymers and their dyeing with safflower and walnut hulls

Abstract

Novel results were obtained by selection of chitosan treatment parameters on cotton fabrics to obtain antimicrobial properties against E. coli, gram-negative bacteria. Taguchi experimental design was used in this study and microbial reduction rate was considered as the response. The signal-to-noise and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to find the optimum levels to indicate the impact of treatment parameters on antimicrobial properties. The antimicrobial behavior of the fabric against bacterium as a function of each parameter was plotted. A verification test was also performed to prove the validity of Taguchi technique for this study after the determination of parameters’ optimum levels. Also the effect of chitosan and the mordanting on the dyeing properties of cotton fabrics with natural dyes such as walnut hull and safflower was investigated by measuring the color strength (K/S values) of the treated and untreated substrates at various concentrations. The results revealed that the K/S of dyed chitosan-treated cottons increased compared to untreated samples. In addition, antimicrobial properties of natural-dyed treated and untreated fabrics were determined. Walnut hull and safflower have shown antimicrobial properties. Although dyeing the chitosan-treated fabric reduced its antimicrobial effects but the results showed that chitosan-treated cotton fabrics had excellent antimicrobial properties against E. coli. Applying Taguchi experimental design for treating cotton fabrics with chitosan and utilizing these native natural dyes have never been used elsewhere.