Development of Protective Cotton Textiles Against Biohazards and Harmful UV Radiation Using Eco-Friendly Novel Fiber-Reactive Bioactive Agent

ABSTRACT

Due to the increase in biological hazards to global security particularly after COVID-19 crises, the need to develop effective and adaptable technologies to protect humans from biological warfare agents (viruses, bacteria, fungi) has increased. Current protective textiles against biohazards are fabricated through finishing of textiles with bioactive agents. However, bioactive agents are leached from the treated textiles due to the poor durability following their accumulation in environment. The objective of this research was to design a sustainable approach for developing ecologically sound antimicrobial textiles in which the antimicrobial agent is covalently bonded to fabric and does not leach into the effluent when laundered. For this, a novel bifunctional reactive finish was synthesized in which chloroxylenol (antimicrobial agent) was covalently integrated into two reactive systems (triazine and vinyl sulfone). For structural validation, 13C-NMR, 1H-NMR, and, FTIR characterization were employed. The as-synthesized reactive finish was applied on the cotton fabric through pad-dry-cure method. The antimicrobial action of treated fabric (before and after 20 laundry cycles) towards viruses, bacteria, and fungi as well as ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) were evaluated according to standard. The treated fabric showed significant fungicidal (>85%) bactericidal (>95%), and viricidal (>85%) action, that remained effective even after 20 washes, revealing that antimicrobial agent has not leached during washing of treated textiles which established non-leaching behavior of the treated textiles. The treated fabric also exhibited outstanding UPF values (>135). The current study has proposed a novel approach for the fabrication of ecologically sustainable antimicrobial textiles and the proposed method is easily scalable at industrial level.