Structures of Novel Antimicrobial Agents for Textiles - A Review

In this article we review some of the contemporary antimicrobial agents used in textiles, including quaternary ammonium compounds, N-halamines, chitosan, polybiguanides, triclosan, nanoparticles of noble metals and metal oxides, and bioactive plant-based products. According to their mechanism of antimicrobial activity, toxicity, durability and ecological acceptability, these agents can be divided into biocides and biostats, leaching and bound antimicrobials, controlled-release and barrier-forming agents, and agents of poor and good washing resistance. In view of the need for ecologically friendly antimicrobial finishing, much research has focused on the synthesis of antimicrobial agents where the leaching antimicrobials have been replaced with the bound antimicrobials. The latter have mostly been prepared using polymerizable quaternary ammonium salts with acrylate groups, alkyltrialkoxysilanes with incorporated quaternary ammonium groups, reactive cationic dyes, appropriate crosslinking agents, complexes with cyclodextrines, and encapsulated nanoparticle agents embedded into polymer matrices of various compositions.