Anti-bacterial activity of tetragonal and cross-pillar-shaped polyester/TiO2 filaments with photo-deposited silver and platinum nanoparticles

Abstract

In this work, we tried to enhance anti-bacterial activity of fabric fibers by controlling the shape of filaments, such as tetragonal and cross-pillar, which led to an increase of the surface portion of filaments. With this purpose, silver and platinum nanoparticles were immobilized on the surface of TiO2 nanoparticles within tetragonal and cross-pillar-shaped polyester (PET) filaments. The process consists of preparing 4 wt.% of TiO2 compounding PET chips, melt-spinning of them and photo catalytic deposition of nanoparticles in sequence. To obtain tetragonal and cross-pillar-shaped morphologies of filaments, two different nozzles were used in the melt-spinning process. For the photo-deposition of metal nanoparticles, adsorption of the metal ions on the surface of the filaments was performed by immersing them in AgNO3 and H2PtCl6 aqueous solutions, respectively, with simultaneous addition of methanol as a sacrificial agent. Photo-deposition was then carried out under ultraviolet light with an irradiation time of 300 s. The structural and antimicrobial properties of the tetragonal and cross-pillar-shaped PET/TiO2 filaments with noble metal loaded were systematically characterized. Ag and Pt metal photo-deposited filaments showed excellent antimicrobial effect against the two types of bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumonia, under the dark condition. © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015.