Preliminary Assessment of Commercial Antibacterial Finishes on Knitted Fabrics from Recycled Cotton and Polyester

Recycled materials are employed in several areas to reduce the environmental burden. Therefore, recycling textiles is a vast domain being investigated by several researchers. Functionalization of textiles using active nanomaterials is a growing area of interest nowadays. However, functionalized textiles with antibacterial properties still do not employ the incorporation of recycled materials. The huge consumer need for different types of functional textiles necessitates a focus on recycled textiles in this area. Hence, this research focuses on the development of metal oxide nanoparticle-functionalized antibacterial textiles using recycled cotton and polyester yarns. Two different finishes have been used with a 50:50 ratio. Using a two-fold approach, antibacterial finishes were applied during both the yarn and fabric stages to analyze the differences in performance. Agar plate qualitative antibacterial analysis revealed efficient antibacterial function both before and after commercial laundering. However, thermo-physiological comfort properties were found to be variable for recycled yarn types and finishing stages. The air permeability of fabric-finished specimens was found to be about 47% lower than yarn-finished specimens owing to reduced porosities. However, the overall moisture management capability (OMMC) index was found to be 21% higher than that of yarn-finished specimens. Among serviceability parameters, bursting strength was found to decrease with increasing concentration, as the finishing treatments made the yarns crispier which eventually compromised yarn strength.