Investigation of antibacterial activities of chalcon derivatives on knitted fabric structures with different raw materials

The fact that hospital-acquired infections increase the length of hospital stay puts great pressure on human health and national economies. The use of antimicrobial textile products is of great importance to prevent the occurrence of nosocomial infections and transport of antibiotic resistance genes. The increasing antimicrobial resistance situation has become a great need for new antimicrobial agents. It is contemplated that chalcone derivatives which can be obtained by natural and synthetic routes may correspond to this need. In this study, two chalcone derivatives (K1 and K2) synthesized by Claisen-Schmidt reaction were applied to 100% cotton jersey and 100% polyester jersey fabrics by various methods. A total of 76 fabrics were obtained in three different categories. The obtained fabrics were evaluated by agar diffusion technique against one gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923), one gram negative (Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC 10031) And one fungal strain (Candida albicans ATCC 10231). SEM and FT-IR analyzes were performed for characterization of fabrics. Antimicrobial activity could not be determined in polyester fabric applications. In the presence of citric acid (8%), antimicrobial activity was determined against all microorganism strains used with 3.3/K1 and 3.3/K2 applications on cotton fabrics. The fabrics obtained with these two applications showed higher activity than the fabrics treated with only 8% citric acid.