Abstract
Functional finishes are agents that are applied to fabrics to make them suitable for specific uses and contribute a specific attribute to a fabric without altering its appearance. In this context, the present study reveals the importance of dyed fabrics with Datura stramonium plant leaf extracts to control antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which have been a threat to human health and posed noticeable challenges confronted with medical physicians in the treatment of many infectious diseases. More still, the importance of using natural dye is not limited to its antimicrobial and other medicine values but also to its wide range of advantages via elimination of environmental pollution due to the usage of synthetic dyes. 100% plain woven, desized, scoured and bleached cotton fabric samples and 100% degummed and bleached hand knitted silk fabric samples were dyed with aqueous extracts from D. stramonium plant leaves in combination with Alum and Iron Sulphate as mordants using post-mordanting method and then tested against two strains of Staphylococus aureus (Gram-positive bacteria) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Gram-negative bacteria) using Agar diffusion method as per SN195920-1992 standard. The fastness properties (wash fastness, light fastness and rubbing fastness) of the dyed fabrics were assessed following guidelines from The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) and International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) testing methods. Spectrophotometric experiments were employed to evaluate the colour strength (K/S) of the dyed samples. The antimicrobial activity results showed that for both cotton and silk dyed fabric samples; there was an interruption of the microbial growth beneath the fabric and a clear zone of inhibition around the fabric. Dye ability and fastness results showed that dyed fabric samples with D. stramonium extracts using mordants had relatively high colour strength (K/S) values as compared to the control fabrics which were dyed without a mordant and their colorant was more stable to light, rubbing and washing, respectively. Key words: Antimicrobial activity, silk fabric, cotton fabric, Datura stramonium extract, mordants.
Highlights
With the presence of a huge number of synthetic drugs, natural bioactive agents within the plant kingdom continue to be part of the health care either in developed or developing economies. (Resmi, 2014)
The study mainly focuses on the antimicrobial activity of cotton and silk fabrics dyed with D. stramonium crude plant leaf extracts
A high inhibition zone was recorded with the cotton and silk fabrics dyed with D. stramonium leaf extract mordanted with Iron Sulphate in comparison to the fabrics dyed with Aluminium Sulphate (Alum) mordant
Summary
With the presence of a huge number of synthetic drugs, natural bioactive agents within the plant kingdom continue to be part of the health care either in developed or developing economies. (Resmi, 2014). Datura stramonium (Jimson weed) is grown in many areas across the world annually. It belongs to the Solanaceae family and is known to be a medicinal herb. Several findings show that D. stramonium plant contains compounds like alkaloids, saponins, steroids, tannins, and glycosides which exhibit antimicrobial properties (Soni et al, 2012; Alapati and Sulthan, 2015; Manikandan and Ananth, 2016). Due to its bitterness and poisonous nature, it is traditionally used in many drugs for the treatment of skin disorders, ear pains, coughs, fever, gastric pains, asthmatic attacks, sprains, muscle pains, cramps contusions, snakebites, piles, convulsions, gums during toothache and applied on dog bite wounds (Alapati and Sulthan, 2015; Aqib Sayyed, 2015)
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