Abstract
An eco-friendly approach for improvement of antibacterial properties of polylactic acid (PLA) nonwoven fabrics was obtained by in situ reduction of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma-induced chitosan grafted (DBD-CS-Ag NPs) PLA nonwoven fabrics. The surface morphology, surface element composition and the chemical state of silver of the PLA surfaces after the treatment were evaluated through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The antibacterial activity of DBD-CS-Ag NPs treated PLA against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was tested. The uniform dispersion of silver nanoparticles on the DBD-CS-Ag NPs treated PLA surface were confirmed by SEM images. The results of XPS and XRD showed that the concentration of silver element on the surface of PLA nonwoven fabrics was significantly improved after DBD-CS-Ag NPs treatment. The DBD-CS-Ag NPs treated PLA nonwoven fabrics also exhibited excellent antibacterial properties.
Highlights
As the world’s oil resources are increasingly exhausted and the environmental pollution is becoming more and more serious, the search for renewable resources has gradually attracted people’s attention
Ag NPs were in situ reduced on the chitosan grafted Polylactic acid (PLA) surfaces as a stabilizer and a reducing agent for improvement the antibacterial properties
The results of energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed that the silver element on the surface of PLA nonwovens was significantly improved after plasma treatment combined with chitosan grafting and Ag NPs adsorption
Summary
As the world’s oil resources are increasingly exhausted and the environmental pollution is becoming more and more serious, the search for renewable resources has gradually attracted people’s attention. Polylactic acid (PLA) has been regarded as the most promising sustainable and biodegradable fiber to replace conventional polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polyester fiber in textile products It is widely used in medical and health, agriculture and forestry protection, and packaging materials due to its good physical and mechanical properties, excellent biocompatibility, and natural degradation [1,2,3]. Studies on surface modification of PLA have been widely performed, including copolymerization [6], blending [7], crosslinking [8] and so on Among these methods, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma has attracted much more attention due to the reduction of the complicated vacuum system, energy saving, and the stable and reliable treatment effect [9,10,11]. Ren et al [16]
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