Durable antibacterial cotton fabrics with chitosan based quaternary ammonium salt

A water soluble quaternary ammonium chitosan derivative, N-benzyl-N,N-diethyl chitosan quaternary ammonium salt (BDCQA), was prepared for antibacterial finish of cotton textiles. The effects of concentrations of finish agents and treatment time on the add-on ratio of cotton treated BDCQA (BDCQA-cotton) were studied in details. The morphology and thermal property of BDCQA-cotton were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermagravimetric (TG) analysis. Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Bacillus cereus (B. cereus), Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) and drug-resistant bacterium Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), were used to evaluate the antibacterial activity and durability of BDCQA-cotton. The results showed that BDCQA-cotton possessed good antibacterial activity and high durability against broad spectrum bacterium. The preliminary investigation on the antibacterial mechanism was discussed in this work.