Crosslinking phenolic compounds with cotton fabrics using succinic acid to develop functional clothing materials

There is currently much interest in natural compounds as bioactive functional components to replace synthetic functional agents in many industrial fields. This trend has also arisen in the textile industry. Phenolic compounds, existing in many fruits and vegetables, are a well-known group of secondary metabolites with a wide range of pharmacological activities. Thus, they have been attracting attention as part of the effort to realize environmentally friendly functional agents for textile finishing. In current research, cotton fabrics were treated with several phenolic compounds to transpose their beneficial characteristics onto clothing material. In particular, the treatment was conducted in two steps; the first to incorporate a crosslinker onto cotton cellulose, and the second to bond the phenolic compound to the crosslinker already anchored onto the cotton fabrics. A more efficient textile treatment was expected after employing the two-step process. After the finishing process, the cotton fabrics treated with phenolic compounds were investigated by FT-IR, SEM, an antibacterial test, and an antioxidant test. It was discovered that cotton fabrics treated with the two-step process showed >99.9 % of antibacterial ability and >80 % of antioxidant ability, even at lower concentrations of the crosslinker and phenolic compounds compared to those in earlier work.