Development of antimicrobial cotton fabric using vitex negundo coleus amboinicus and gloriosa superba

Abstract

Cotton, the most dominant natural fibre used in apparels due to its newlinecomfort properties. Cotton is easily attacked by microbes and cause problems newlineincluding skin diseases, unpleasant odours, colour stains, colour fading, newlinestrength loss, clammy feel, cross infections and discomfort to the wearers. newlineAntimicrobial agents are applied on cotton fabrics to avoid the newlineproliferation of microbes. Various synthetic antimicrobial agents are applied newlineto cotton and its blends. But these synthetic antimicrobial agents many a time newlineare not environmentally safe.Various natural medicinal herbs have proven antimicrobial newlineproperties, but these natural sources have very limited wash durability in newlinedirect methods of applications.In this work, the medicinal plants, Vitex negundo, Coleus newlineamboinicus, Gloriosa superba, Cyperus rotundus, Pithecellobium dulce, newlineAcalypha indica and Clitoria ternatea were used to study the antimicrobial newlineactivities in terms of zone inhibition, bacterial reduction percentage. Out of newlineseven medicinal herbal sources, three herbal sources Vitex negundo, Coleus newlineamboinicus and Gloriosa superba were found suitable for antimicrobial newlineactivities.Four different solvents, methanol, ethanol, benzene and aqueous newlinesolution were used to extract the active ingredients from the herbal sources to newlinestudy the effect of antimicrobial activities against four microbes, S.simulans, newlineS.xylosus, B.subtilis, and S.epidermidis. The methanolic extracts showed good newlineantimicrobial activity against all the four microbes.The selected herbals, Vitex negundo, Coleus amboinicus and newlineGloriosa superba were extracted and the extracts were encapsulated newline(microencapsules and nanoencapsules) by coacervation method. The particle newlinesizes of the nanoencapsules were in the range of 120-200 nm.The herbal extracts were applied on 100% cotton plain woven fabrics by exhaust, microencapsulation and nanoencapsulation methods newline newline