Zein impart hydrophobic and antimicrobial properties to cotton textiles

Abstract

In this work, zein, a by-product of the agricultural industry of corn, was used to impart hydrophobicity and antimicrobial activity to textiles. The cotton textiles were functionalized with zein in two different forms, free or as particles. The optimized coating conditions which rendered the highest hydrophobic character to the textiles were found to be 50 g/L zein in the free form prepared with 70% ethanol. To enhance the antimicrobial activity of the coated textiles, ellagic acid was encapsulated into the zein particles. These presented stable diameters, between 300 and 450 nm, and positive surface charge revealing high encapsulation efficiency. After textiles coating, the controlled release of ellagic acid was tested against different mimetic biologic solutions. The release profile was dependent on the ethanol concentration, on the sweat solution pH and on the external media used during dialysis. The functionalized textiles revealed differentiated antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive). For E. coli the activity was mainly related with the action of zein while for S. aureus a combined effect between the protein and the ellagic acid was observed. The results herein presented pave the way for the development of new zein-based products for a wide range of applications.

Satureja montana Essential Oil, Zein Nanoparticles and Their Combination as a Biocontrol Strategy to Reduce Bacterial Spot Disease on Tomato Plants

“…These biomolecules may act directly as antimicrobials or elicit the plant's defenses against pathogens [66]. Also, the zein treated plants showed a decrease in Xeu amount, supporting previous reports on the zein protein possessing antimicrobial properties [63]. Therefore, the reduction of ROS content in tomato leaves (Figure 4) might be due to these products' protective role on plant cell mechanisms, allied with their antimicrobial activity (Figure 2).…”

“…These data also show that zein NPs alone presented high antimicrobial activity. It should be noted that, despite being reported as effective carriers of EOs and other antimicrobial compounds [60][61][62], some works also report that zein itself possesses antimicrobial properties [63]. However, to our knowledge this is the first report suggesting that zein NPs possess antimicrobial activity against phytopathogens, namely Xeu.…”

Nanofibers functionalized with surfactants to Eliminate SARS-CoV-2 and other airborne pathogens

“…To avoid side effects is recommended the usage of more natural compounds (EMAM, 2019). Many organic compounds are viable to confer biocidal action to textiles, such as Essential oils (ALONSO et al, 2010;GONÇALVES et al, 2020;PYANKOV et al, 2012), cyclodextrins (LI et al, 2014, triclosan (GOLJA et al, 2016;ORHAN et al, 2007), chitosan (FERNANDEZ-SAIZ et al, 2009;LI;ZHUANG, 2020), and surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SOUSA et al, 2019) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (RAMESH et al, 2003;SIMÕES et al, 2008). The applications and mechanisms of surfactants as biocide agents are explored in the next section.…”

Fatigue Testing of Wearable Sensing Technologies: Issues and Opportunities

“…Cotton is an especially attractive option for wearable medical and telehealth sensors because cotton is hypoallergenic [ 167 ], ecofriendly [ 168 , 169 , 170 ], lightweight [ 170 ], cost-efficient [ 168 , 170 , 171 ], sustainable [ 168 ], and easily laundered [ 169 , 171 ]. In addition to these properties, cotton serves as a “blank canvas” that may be treated with antimicrobial agents—a property that is desirable when monitoring wound healing [ 167 , 172 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 , 177 , 178 , 179 ].…”