Color data and antibacterial properties of smart Ag/polypyrrole-nanocoated cotton fabric

Abstract

Smart textiles are responsive fabrics for environmental changes, such as biological, electrical, thermal, mechanical, chemical, magnetic, optical, etc. It was envisioned that silver nanoparticles, in conjunction with polypyrrole, would render the cotton fabric colorful and antibacterial. Thus, cotton fabric was easily coated in situ while sliver nitrate gets reduced to silver (Ag), and pyrrole gets polymerized to polypyrrole (PPy). The Ag/PPy-nanocoated cotton fabric was characterized by ATR-FTIR and SEM-EDX, and the results obtained confirmed the structure of the coating layer in which the silver atomic content was 23.75%. The color strength of the nanocoated fabric was as high as 12.74. The color data indicated that the hue was dark gray, and the fastness properties revealed good to very good fastness properties. Antibacterial studies against antibiotic-resistant bacteria (Escherichia coli (gram-negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (gram-positive)) revealed the effectiveness of the Ag/ PPy-nanocoated fabric and was even better than different antibiotics. The present work may pave the way for further development of medical textiles.