Preparation and Antibacterial Properties of Nanocomposite Fibers Made of Polyamide 6 and Silver-doped Hydroxyapatite

Abstract

Nanocomposite fibers of polyamide 6 (PA6) and hydroxyapatite (HA) were prepared and doped with silver to investigate antibacterial activities due to good potential for textile modification. Nano-sized HA could be synthesized using agarose and ethanol as thickener and washing medium, respectively. The PA6/HA nanocomposite fibers could be doped with silver by dipping the fibers having HA in aqueous AgNO3 solution containing 300 ppm of Ag ion for 1 min utilizing HA as a carrier to load silver through ion-exchange mechanism. It was found that silver was successfully doped to PA6/HA nanocomposite fibers from the EDS spectra. The nanocomposite fibers containing 3.3 wt% of HA after silver doping demonstrated such excellent antibacterial activities against K pneumonia and E. coli that they are expected to serve as functional antibacterial materials in various application fields.