Abstract

Developing durable multifunctional clothing with enhanced mechanical and comfort properties utilizing eco-friendly, cost-effective hybrid nano finishes is highly challenging. The reason behind the nondurable functionality is the lack of bonding ability of nanoparticles (NPs) with cotton fabric, and this additional coating has a great impact on the mechanical, thermo-physiological, and sensorial comfort properties of cotton fabric. Focusing on these issues, this paper attempts to develop biogenic chitosan-loaded CuO-SiO2 hybrid nano finishes with three distinct formulations, namely Chi-CuO-SiO2(5g/L), Chi-CuO-SiO2(10g/L), and Chi-CuO-SiO2(20g/L) hybrid nanofluids, to incorporate on cotton fabric by pad-dry-cure method. These hybrid nanofluids from biogenic Chi-CuO and rice husk SiO2 NPs have been newly introduced for textile application. The NPs CuO and SiO2 are synthesized from lemon peel zest extract and rice husk, respectively. Characterization of CuO NPs by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray diffractometers (XRD) evidences that spherical-shaped, amorphous, and 60–80 nm sized NPs are synthesized. The hydrodynamic performance of hybrid nanofluids measured by Zeta Sizer shows that the chitosan-loaded CuO-SiO2(5g/L) hybrid nanofluid is the most stable among the three, and the value is +29.4 mV. The presence of CuO NPs, SiO2 NPs, and chitosan on cotton fabric was confirmed by FTIR, FESEM, and EDX spectra of the hybrid nanofluid-deposited fabric. The cotton fabric coated with chitosan-loaded CuO-SiO2 hybrid nanofluids exhibits better durable antimicrobial efficacy, UV-protective properties, and thermo-physiological comfort properties than that of the uncoated fabric. More specifically, CuO-SiO2(20g/L)-coated fabric demonstrates approximately 99.99% bacterial efficacy against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria even after 15 washing cycles, and excellent UV-protective properties. In addition, CuO-SiO2(5g/L)-coated fabric displays around 75% enhancement of overall moisture management properties and 1.22% and 0.53% enhancement of tensile strength in warp and weft directions with excellent elongation compared to the pristine one. Moreover, assessment of the mechanical sensorial comfort properties of this fabric depicts that it is smoother, and has better thermal conductivity than that of the control one. In addition, CuO-SiO2(5g/L) hybrid nanofluid-treated cotton fabric exhibited cell viability above 95%, which confirms its non-cytotoxicity. The outcomes of this study suggest that chitosan-loaded CuO-SiO2(5g/L) hybrid nanofluid-treated cotton fabric can be considered as optimum and employed as biomedical textiles with better mechanical and comfort properties.

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