Antibacterial cotton fabric grafted with silver nanoparticles and its excellent laundering durability.

In order to fabricate antibacterial cotton fabric with excellent antibacterial property and laundering durability, amino functional silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were prepared by one-step reaction with amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer (HBP-NH(2)) and grafted on the oxidized cotton fabric subsequently. The synthesized amino functional Ag NPs and Ag NPs grafted oxidized cotton fabric (Ag-GOCF) were characterized which indicated that the average size of Ag NPs was 10.8 nm with narrow size distribution and the Ag NPs have been grafted on the cotton fabric. 99.43% and 99.45% bacterial reduction rates were obtained for Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) respectively in case the cotton fabric was treated with 10 mg/L Ag NPs solution to produce Ag-GOCF with 149.88 mg/kg Ag content. After 50 washing cycles, the Ag content of this Ag-GOCF was maintained at 116.08 mg/kg with its antibacterial activity at over 96% reduction level.