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ABSTRACT
Wool fabric is a suitable medium for growing bacteria under favorable temperature and humidity conditions resulting in wool degradation, skin irritation or infections. Carboxylic groups were incorporated in wool polypeptide chains by grafting acrylic acid initiated chemically with hydrogen peroxide and metallic anions of Cu^sup 2+^. The mechanism of grafting is suggested, and post-treatment with two antibiotics, Neomycin (Ne) and Tetracycline hydrochloride (Te), to obtain antibacterial fibers in relation to Gram-positive and Gram-negative microorganisms. This was confirmed by measuring the inhibition zone of treated wool fabric with the above mentioned antibiotic under various conditions. The modified fabrics showed different activities in relation to the microorganisms being dependent on the type and quantity of added biocide. Post-treated wool fabric displayed excellent bacteriostatic durability on fabric after multiple washing. FT-IR spectroscopy confirmed the ionic interaction between wool and the antibiotic due to the appearance of new bands at 1650 cm^sup -1^ corresponding to amide I and band at 1520 cm^sup -1^ attributed to amide II. Wool treated with the aforementioned method showed improvement in shrinkage. Changes in surface morphology were also observed.
Keywords: Wool Fabrics, Tetracycline, Neomycin, Acrylic Acid, Grafting, Absorption, Scanning Electro Microscope, FTIR Spectroscopy
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1. Introduction
Different studies have been found in the literature dealing with chemical modification of wool fibers to acquire distinguished properties and reliable applications for various end uses. Wool fabrics and wool garments provide an excellent environment for microorganisms to grow because of their large area and ability to retain moisture which can deteriorate these materials. Antimicrobial treatments are rapidly becoming standard finishes for some categories of textile products such as medical institutional and hygienic uses (Purwar & Joshi, 2004).
Antimicrobial finishes prevent microbial attack on wool and prolong their useful life (Gao & Cranston, 2008). There are different ways to prevent the attachment of microorganisms to fiber surface, including aromatic halogen compounds, organometalic salts, quaternary ammonium salts (Ali et al., 2010), iodophores, phenols, urea and its related compounds (i.e. formaldehyde derivatives) amines (Lim & Hudson, 2003) and silver nanoparticles (Abdel-Fattah et al., 2010).
Natural products such as chitin derivatives and its protonated amino groups on glucose ring are also used (Achwal, 2003). The aim of this study is to develop an approach...