ANTIMICROBIAL FINISHING OF TEXTILES USING EMULSIONS BASED ON NATURAL PRODUCTS

Abstract

Bioactive dressings are obtained using substances which release bioactive compounds. A way of immobilization active ingredients on various textile materials is through emulsions based on natural polymers. Active ingredients, like essential oils and propolis play an important role in the inhibition and prevention of bacterial growth. Chitosan and xanthan gum are suitable for essential oil entrapment due to their biodegradability, low product costs and environmentally friendly production processes. The aim of this paper is to highlight the antimicrobial activity and biocompatibility of textile materials treated with cinnamon essential oil and propolis based emulsions. In this respect, experimental samples of oil-in-water emulsions type, based on chitosan-propolis-cinnamon essential oil and xanthan-propolis-cinnamon essential oil were prepared and then were immobilized on woven fabrics with different fiber compositions. The functionalized textile materials were characterized in terms of their physical-mechanical and physical-chemical characteristics, antibacterial activity and biocompatibility point of view. From the corroboration of the obtained data it was found that the obtained samples are more hydrophobic than the untreated material and the bioactive polymeric systems have shown antibacterial activity for both gram positive bacteria (S. aureus) and gram negative bacteria (E. coli) test strains. The in vitro biocompatibility evaluation on human skin cells confirmed the absence of cytotoxicity after the short-term exposure. Also, the treated samples displayed a good biocompatibility without skin irritations.

Keywords

• bioactive textiles
• propolis
• chitosan
• xanthan
• antibacterial activity
• biocompatibility