Development and application of novel nanocapsules for new generation antibacterial nonwovens

Textiles are ideal environment for microorganisms to grow especially for bacteria. Therefore, medical textiles should have antibacterial characteristics to protect its wearer from cross infection. Long term durability for the antibacterial efficiency and usage of less functional agent are desired properties for these textiles. Functional capsules can fulfill these necessities. These capsules have recently been formed using microencapsulation method. But this method has some disadvantages like complexity, reproducibility, polydispersity, etc. Nanoencapsulation is a novel and promising method that can eliminate these disadvantages and provides several advantages. Although it provides a huge potential for obtaining functional textiles, there has not been any study available for the application of them on textiles. In this study, nanocapsules were produced with Polylactic acid (PLA, shell) and plant extract (core) via nanoencapsulation. Solution and processing parameters were optimized to obtain nano sized smooth spherical PLA particles and nanocapsules. For this purpose, characterization of solutions, morphological (SEM, FESEM and TEM) and dimensional (Nanosizer) analyses of nanoparticles and nanocapsules were performed. Our findings showed that nanocapsule formation with desired capsule morphology and size was achieved. These capsules were also successfully applied on to textiles which yielded satisfactory antibacterial efficiencies. Keywords: nanoparticles, nanospheres, nanocapsules, nanoencapsulation, medical textiles, antibacterial.