Evaluation of Durability to Laundering of Triclosan and Chitosan on a Textile Substrate

Abstract

In a hospital environment, textile substrates have been implicated as a vector in the transmission of disease. To mitigate the harmful spread of disease via textile substrates, an effective measure is treatment of textiles with antimicrobial agents. The current investigation compares one of the most widely used chemically synthesized antimicrobial agents, triclosan with chitosan, a naturally occurring antimicrobial agent. For the study, samples of a common polyester/cotton textile used in hospital settings were treated with triclosan and chitosan based antimicrobial agents. Following treatment, the samples were analyzed for their effectiveness against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli using standard AATCC Test Methods. The efficacy of the treatment to laundering was then evaluated by subjecting the treated samples to 50 washings and repeating the tests against the challenge microorganisms. Data obtained were statistically analyzed at a 95% confidence interval. Results showed that before laundering both triclosan and chitosan treated samples were extremely effective as antimicrobial agents. After laundering, chitosan was less effective against E.coli but maintained efficacy against S. aureus. The effectiveness of triclosan was not adversely affected after the laundering treatments.