Use of essential oils as bioactive substances for antimicrobial finishing of fabrics


Ravindra, K B ; Dinesh, Y M; Chandrasekhara, S M

Abstract

Antimicrobial compounds (essential oils) have been extracted from natural spices, such as oregano and cinnamon, using organic solvent (ethylene) by soxhlet apparatus. The above bioactive agents (5% & 10 % owf separately for both agents) are applied separately on plain cotton and polyester/cotton woven fabrics using pad-dry-cure process. For fixation of the finishing agents, glutaraldehyde (8% owf) has been used as a cross-linking agent along with sodium hypophosphite (2% owf) as the catalyst. Evaluation of the antimicrobial activity of untreated and treated fabrics has been performed quantitatively by percentage reduction test against test organisms Gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli. The results indicate that treated fabrics register >90% antimicrobial activity against S. aureus and E. coli bacterial strains. After 10 washes, the efficacy of antimicrobial activity is reduced by 10-20% only. A small decrease in flexibility, breaking
strength and elongation properties is observed for treated
fabrics. However, treated fabrics show enhanced crease
recovery.


Keyword(s)

Antimicrobial activity;Bioactive substance;Biodegradable;Cotton;Polyester/cotton fabric

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