Farbod Mirshahi - Amirkabir University of Technology, Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Tehran, Iran
Alireza Khosravi - Amirkabir University of Technology, Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Tehran, Iran
Kamaladin Gharanjig - Institue for Color Science and Technology, Department of Organic Colorants, Tehran, Iran
Javad Fakhari - Shahid Beheshti University, Faculty of Biological Science, Department of Microbiology,

The talk will present novel results relating to the selection of chitosan treatment parameters on cotton fabric for obtaining antimicrobial properties against E. coli as gram-negative bacteria. Antimicrobial properties of chitosan treated fabric were affected by several parameters, such as concentration of chitosan, concentration of crosslinking agent, curing temperature, curing time and etc. L9 Taguchi experimental design was used in this study. The signal-to-noise and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to find the optimum levels and to indicate the impact of treatment parameters on antimicrobial properties. The antimicrobial behavior of fabric against bacterium as a function of each parameter was plotted. A verification test is also performed to prove the validity of Taguchi technique for this study after the optimum levels of parameters are determined. Also the effect of chitosan application on the dyeing properties of cotton fabrics with natural dyes was studied by measuring the K/S values of the treated and untreated substrates at various concentrations of the dye. Chitosan could increase the natural dye uptake of cotton fabric.

experimental design, E. coli, gram negative, K/S, microbial reduction