Antibacterial Modification of Cotton Fabric Through Argon Plasma-Induced Grafting Polymerization

Developing antibacterial materials is an efficient way to reduce the risk of harmful microorganism to human body. As a kind of popular textiles, cotton fabric (CF) is easy to breed microorganism and it is necessary to render it with biocidal effect. In this work, a water-soluble N-halamine precursor, (E)-1-(4-(allyloxy)phenyl)-N-(2-(piperazin-1-yl)ethyl)methanimine (APPEM), was synthesized and grafted onto cotton fabric through an argon plasma-induced grafting polymerization process. Afterward, the grafted cotton fabric was exposed to dilute sodium hypochlorite solution to change N–H bond into N–Cl bond and then the antibacterial cotton fabric (CF-APPEM-Cl) was obtained. The treated cotton fabric presented considerable biocidal efficacy and stability against UV light, washing, and storage. Escherichia coli (6.63 logs) and Staphylococcus aureus (6.44 logs) could be effectively inactivated within 60 min. Also, the oxidative chlorine on the fabric recovered over 76.9 and 81.5% after UV irradiation for 24 h and 50 washing cycles, respectively. And the oxidative chlorine remained 85% after 30 days of storage. Meanwhile, the mechanical properties of cotton fabric were hardly affected by this antibacterial treatment. This work provides a simple and efficient way to prepare antibacterial cotton fabric with high performance, which might be helpful to promote the development of antibacterial textiles.