Non-Thermal Plasma Treatment Coupled with a Photocatalyst for Antimicrobial Performance of Ihram Cotton Fabric

Abstract

All Muslim pilgrims must wear Ihram clothes during the Hajj and Umrah seasons, which presents a great challenge regarding how to eliminate the spread of microbes attached to the cotton fabric of Ihram from the surrounding environment. Targeted fashion research of the recent past presents a new industrial treatment, which has led us to study the impact of heat directed from an atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ), coupled with photocatalytic nanomaterials, for the antibacterial treatment of Escherichia coli (E. coli) attached to cotton fabric samples, to improve pollutant remediation. The average rates of heat transfer to the bacterial colonies attached to cotton fabric samples, as a function of the laminar mode, were 230 and 77 mW for dry and wet argon discharges, respectively. The jet temperatures (TJ) and heat transfer (QH) decreased more for wet argon discharge than for dry argon discharge. This is because, due to the wettability by TiO2 photocatalyst concentration dosage increases from 0 to 0.5 g L−1, a proportion of the energy from the APPJ photons is expended in overcoming the bandgap of TiO2 and is used in the creation of electron–hole pairs. In the Weibull deactivation function used for the investigation of the antibacterial treatment of E. coli microbes attached to cotton fabric samples, the deactivation kinetic rate of E. coli increased from 0.0065 to 0.0152 min−1 as the TiO2 precursor concentration increased. This means that the sterilization rate increased despite (TJ) and (QH) decreasing as the wettability by TiO2 photocatalyst increases. This may be due to photocatalytic disinfection and the generation of active substances, in addition to the effect of the incident plume of the non-thermal jet.