Design and synthesis of bactericidal block copolymer for preparing durably antibacterial PA6 fibre

Polymer fibres are widely used in various materials in contact with the human body. As bacterial contamination may lead to the emergence of disease, it is necessary to provide fibres with durably antibacterial properties. In this work, based on 4‐vinyl pyridine, fluorine‐containing monomers and acrylic acid monomers, new quaternary ammonium salt polymer containing fluorine (NP) were prepared by solution polymerisation, and then the antibacterial composite fibre was prepared by melt spinning of the NP (9 wt%) and Nylon 6 fibre (PA6). The structure and properties of NP and composite fibres were characterised, respectively. The results indicated that the water contact angle of NP reached 104°, the pyrolysis temperature was 302°C, and the interface interaction between NP and PA6 was good, which could achieve more uniform dispersion in Nylon 6 matrix. In addition, the composite fibre decreased obviously the number of colony‐forming units within 24 h (the bactericidal rate was 99.99% against E. coli and 99.81% against S. aureus ) compared with pure PA6 fibre. The composite fibre was a good durably antibacterial material, which could still inactivate over 96% inoculated E. coli and S. aureus after washing 7 days.