Imparting durable antimicrobial properties to cotton fabrics using quaternary ammonium salts through 4-aminobenzenesulfonic acid–chloro–triazine adduct

A 4-aminobenzenesulfonic acid–chloro–triazine adduct was successfully synthesized in a laboratory scale and treated with cotton fabrics in order to increase the anionic sites and thereby % exhaustion of cationic compounds. Two Quaternary Ammonium Salts (QAS) was investigated namely, Cetylpyridinum chloride (CPC) and Benzyldimethylhexadecyl ammonium chloride (BDHAC) which are widely accepted as strong antimicrobial agents. The reaction mechanism involved in the synthesis of the reactive adduct as well its application to cotton fabric were demonstrated in detail. The effects of application parameters, namely pH, temperature and liquor ratio were examined. The reaction efficiency was determined through monitored % exhaustion of the adduct by cotton fabric. Antimicrobial activity of the treated cotton sample was studied against Staphylococcus aureus according to AATCC test method 100-1999. Results obtained show that the treated fabric shows higher antimicrobial activity compared with the untreated fabric. The results depict also that % exhaustion decreases as the pH, temperature and liquor ratio increase. Moreover, the appropriate predictable empirical models were developed using Excel solver function incorporating interaction effects of all variables to predict the % exhaustion and the satisfactory results (R2 > 0.98) were obtained.