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Effect of plasma treated wool fabrics using natural fungal pigment for healthcare applications

M.Parthiban, G.Thilagavathi

The present study aims to improve the dyeability and antimicrobial activity of natural extract onwool fabric by using lowtemperature plasma treatment. The fungal pigments were extracted from the species of Thermomyces, purified and characterized using UV-Vis and FTIR spectra and used for dyeing process. An experiment has been designed using Box- Benkhen with three levels and three variables using pH, temperature and time as independent variables with wash, rubbing, light fastness and bacterial reduction (%) as dependent variables and the conditions were optimized. Regression equations have been obtained to analyze the fastness properties and bacterial reduction and the optimum process parameters were identified. The method is also to modify the conventional dyeing process using plasma pretreatment onwool fabric before dyeingwith natural fungal extract and to analyze the parameters like wash fastness, rubbing fastness, light fastness and bacterial reduction (%). The results showed that optimum concentration of the fungal pigment was 2% on weight of the fabric and the optimumcondition for dyeingwas 60 deg C, 30min at a pH of 3 and the plasma pretreated samples brings better fixation levels, improvement in fastness properties and imparts good antibacterial activity for the dyed wool fabric at optimum condition. It was also inferred that the plasma treated samples does not showed any influence with increase in the treatment time.  2014 Trade Science Inc. - INDIA