Antimicrobial effect of zygomycetes cell wall on nonwoven textiles

• Main Author: Lennartsson, Patrik
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Ingenjörshögskolan 2007
• Subjects: Engineering and Technology; Teknik och teknologier
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-18452

The goal of this thesis work was to investigate the antimicrobial effect of chitosan from zygomyzetes cell wall material in nonwoven textiles and compare it to commercially available chitosan. This was done using two methods, a somewhat modified version of AATCC Test Method 100-2004 (a standard method for quantitative testing of antimicrobial effect in textiles developed by the AATCC Committee) focusing on CFU, and TTC, a tetrazolium salt that changes from colourless to red in the presence of living microorganisms under the right conditions. The CFU method was also used to detect if it is possible to add chitosan earlier in the production stages, by scanning for any antimicrobial effect in test samples produced that way. Commercial chitosan added to the test samples in 2 % citric acid showed the strongest antimicrobial effect, even reaching the detection limit of approximately 99.5 % inhibition for both E. coli and K. pneumoniae without any incubation. Medium molecular weight commercial chitosan added in 2 % citric acid solution was also the only tested compound that could eliminate C. ablicans after 24 h incubation. Both commercial chitosan added as a powder and cell wall extract showed a mediocre inhibition without incubation, but were able to reach >99 % inhibition after 24 h incubation. Generally speaking, the chitosan investigated is comparable to the chitosan available commercially today, even if it required somewhat longer to reach the same levels of inhibition. The other method for addition of chitosan, however, did not work properly. === Uppsatsnivå: D