Imparting Polyamide-6 Nonwoven Fabrics Antimicrobial Activity for Medical and Intelligent Packaging Applications

The ultimate goal of this article is producing on industrial scale antimicrobial nonwoven fabrics based on polyamide-6 (PA-6) fibers for medical and intelligent packaging applications. Therefore, the adaptation and development of pilot scale conditions for imparting PA-6 textile materials antimicrobial properties is highly needed. The effect of semi-industrial scale finishing conditions, mainly antimicrobial substrate concentration, duration and temperature on the (%) of colony forming unit (CFU) reduction after treatment with alkaline aqueous solutions of quaternary ammonium salt definitely dimethylalkylbenzyl ammonium chloride (DMABAC) was examined. The antimicrobial activity of PA-6 fibers finished with DMABAC against Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus), Gram-negative (Escherichia coli), and nonfilamentous fungus (Candida albicans) was investigated using the shake flask method. Antimicrobial activity of produced PA-6 nonwoven fabrics was appeared outstanding antimicrobial activities as follow: needle punched nonwoven fabrics were 95% Bacillus mycoides, 91% Escherichia coli, and Candida albicans 88.5%, respectively. While air laid nonwoven fabrics were 92.3 %, 89.7% and 85.3%, respectively. The achieved antimicrobial functions on the PA-6 nonwoven fabrics are durable with repeated laundering processes even after five washing cycles. Accordingly, the improvement antimicrobial properties of these fibers was important for a wider range of industrial applications including medical mattresses and ventilation sectors.