Natural Fiber Welding of Chitin and Chitosan on a Cotton Cloth Substrate: Novel Materials Displaying Antimicrobial Properties

摘要

Chitin and chitosan are biopolymers known to have natural antimicrobial properties. The ionic liquid (IL) based process of Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) was used to integrate chitin and chitosan into and between the fiber surfaces of cotton cloth. The NFW coating process was evaluated using scanning electron microscopy. The antimicrobial properties of the NFW coated cloths was investigated using E. Coli transfected with Green Fluorescent Protein. Confocal fluorescence microscopy (CFM) showed that both chitin and chitosan coatings inhibited microbial growth with the level of the inhibition increasing with longer NFW.