Ultrasonic-assisted antimicrobial functionalization of cotton knitwear with plant extracts
Abstract This work presents the advantages of using ultrasound (US) in the procedure of antimicrobial functionalization of cotton knitwear. Ultrasound-assisted extraction of bioactive components from plant material reduced the extraction time by 40% and increased the degree of utilization by 12.5% in comparison with conventional extraction. By optimizing the H2O2 bleaching process, it was found that the application of ultrasound resulted in reducing the temperature from 100 °C to 60 °C, the processing time by 30 min and the H2O2 concentration from 4% to 2%, while retaining the same weight loss, the appropriate degree of whiteness with preserved mechanical properties compared with treatment carried out without using ultrasound. Dyeing with the plant extract of Achillea millefolium L. using the ultrasonic atomization resulted in even coloration and antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, with using minimum quantities of extract and 6.67 times shorter processing time in comparison with the bath exhaustion method.