Eco-Friendly approach for enhancing functionality of PET/C blended fabric with ZnO NPs

The current study explores at the viability of employing enzymatic treatments to activate fabric surfaces and enable for the long-term loading of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) onto PET/C blended fabrics. The fabric was treated with pectinase degrading enzyme, manufactured by a locally identified fungus from agriculture waste.; the active strain was genetically identified as Aspergillus foetidus (NR_163668.1). Factors affecting the activation of textile material with pectinase enzyme (incubation time and concentration) were studied. Parent and pretreated textiles loaded with ZnO NPs were investigated using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX), and Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). Antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans by using inhibition zone and shake flask methods was evaluated. UV protection efficacy of activated and ZnO NPs loaded textiles were assessed. The impact of different concentrations of the enzyme and different periods of pectinase incubation with the textile revealed that the highest activity of the partially purified enzyme (41.4 U/ml) was got at the first 15 min and an increase in the activity of pectin degrading enzyme from 20.5 U/ml by 0.8 g/l enzyme to 70.6 U/ml by the use of 4 g/l pectinase. Candida albicans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were got 0.84 × 10⁸ and 0.6 × 10⁸ CFU/ml using shake flask method respectively. The pretreated and ZnO NPs loaded fabrics demonstrated exceptional and durable antibacterial activity using inhibition zone and UV protection efficiency, even after five washing cycles.