Ecofriendly surface modification of cotton fabric to enhance the adhesion of CuO nanoparticles for antibacterial activity

ABSTRACT The present study employs a facile and environmentally cleaner plasma technology to induce adhesion between the cotton fabric and CuO nanoparticles. The oxygen plasma pre-treatment of cotton fabric was performed using DC glow discharge plasma for different plasma treatment times (5, 10 and 15 min) with constant pressure and power. The untreated and plasma treated cotton fabrics were analysed by contact angle, AFM, XPS, XRD, FESEM and elemental mapping analysis. From the AFM results, it is observed that the surface roughness of treated fabric increases with plasma treatment time. XPS analysis reveals that the oxygen plasma treatment introduces oxygen-rich functional groups on the surface which provides the adhesion property of cotton fabric. The 15 min oxygen plasma treated cotton fabric is optimised to coat the CuO nanoparticles based on the AFM and XPS analyses. Furthermore, the CuO nanoparticles coated plasma treated cotton fabric are analysed for antibacterial test and a significant antibacterial activity was identified for gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Graphical abstract