Preparation and properties of multifunctional cotton fabrics treated by phenolic acids

Phenolic acids are found in many plant-based natural antioxidants and are known to offer diverse health-promoting effects such as antimelanogenic, antioxidant, antineoplastic, and bacteriostatic properties. Furthermore, they not only inhibit pathogen growth but also have little toxicity to human beings. Therefore, in this study we treated cotton fabrics with two different phenolic acids, gallic acid (GA) and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA), through a pad-dry cure process, and investigated the properties such as mechanical properties, antibacterial ability, antioxidant ability, etc. Consequently, the phenolic acid treatment did not have significant influence on color, touch, and tensile strength of cotton fabrics. However, it was found that the cotton fabrics treated by both GA and 4-HBA showed high antibacterial ability against Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumonia; however, only the GA treated cotton fabrics showed reasonable antioxidant ability.