LAUSR

Inexpensive and commercially available methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) was covalently bonded onto the cotton fabrics by an effective catalytic solid-state reaction in water. The as-prepared MBA grafted cotton fabric (cotton-MBA) was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy image and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra. After a facile chlorination in diluted NaOCl solution, the amide functional groups in cotton-MBA were converted to N-halamine ones and durable antibacterial cotton fabric containing stable noncyclic N-halamine groups (cotton–MBA–Cl) was achieved. Antimicrobial testing showed that the cotton–MBA–Cl could effectively inactivate 5.78 × 107 CFU/mL of S. aureus and 7.58 × 108 CFU/mL of E. coli O157:H7 completely within 1 min of contact time. Washing durability testing indicated that the oxidative chlorine percentage of the cotton–MBA–Cl decreased from 0.43% to 0.06% after 50 washing cycles and was recovered to 0.30% via a simple rechlorination. It means that the N-...