Functional finishing of barkcloth for antimicrobial properties using zinc oxide nanoparticles.

Abstract

Barkcloth a naturally occurring cellulosic non-woven fabric has recently obtained attention in the research community for applications in the apparel and a wide range of industrial fields such as automobile; household furnishing mid construction due to its unique properties such as excellent mechanical strength, good thermal and sound absorption properties and its biodegradability. Functional finishing of textile materials for antimicrobial properties on the other hand has also been of great interest more especially with the advent of nanotechnology. Zinc Oxide nanoparticles have shown antibacterial activity with higher efficiency, and has also been. used for self-cleaning. and U, V protection due to the lower band gap energy of ZnO i.e. 3.37 eV, causing higher antibacterial activity for it even under dark conditions (Hirata et al, 2010). In this work, backcloth Was treated with different concentration of zinc oxide nanoparticles using the pad-dry-cure method and the test organism used were Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) chosen as model bacteria -to evaluate the antibacterial activity of' Zinc oxide, Nanoparticle. Anti-microbial activity was determined using AATCC 100 Antimicrobial Test Method' for Textile Fabrics (Assessment of Antimicrobial Finishes on Textile Materials), The coated backcloth samples with concentration 0.6 g/L showed a significant percentage reduction of the both the gram +ve and gram —ve bacteria, with the gram negative E coli bacteria demonstrating a high susceptibility to the zinc oxide nanoparticle than gram. positive S aureus, thus it Can therefore be used for hospital furnishing and in other like automobile for anti-microbial protection Keywords: Backcloth, Zinc oxide nanoparticles(ZnONPs), Antimicrobial.