Investigation of temperature-responsive and thermo-physiological comfort of modified polyester fabric with Sericin/PNIPAAm/Ag NPs interpenetrating polymer network hydrogel

Abstract

Stimuli-responsive polymers applied to traditional textiles have received widespread attention. In this work, a new type of polymer-modified polyester fabric was prepared with interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogel. The IPN hydrogel comprised of poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm), silk sericin (SS), and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). The presence of the IPN hydrogel on the surface of fibers can change the wettability of polyester fabric, in response to temperature. The thermal behavior of IPN hydrogel was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TG). DSC results indicated that the IPN hydrogel exhibits temperature-responsive behavior and the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was around 32.9℃. The decomposition temperature of modified polyester fabric (400.5℃) was better than the original polyester fabric (335℃). TG results indicated that the polymer-modified fabric possessed higher thermal stability than the original polyester fabrics. The thermo-physiological comfort of modified polyester fabric was characterized by water contact angle and vertical wicking test. Above the LCST, the wettability of the polymer-modified polyester fabric would decrease because of the volume phase transition of IPN hydrogel. Moreover, the antibacterial activity of the modified temperature-sensitive fabric against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli was also investigated, and the antibacterial activity for both microorganisms exceeded 95%. This study provided a feasible route to fabricate the temperature-responsive textile with great antibacterial performance.