Preparation and characterization of polyurethane-Rheum rhabarbarum-zirconium phosphate composite fiber with antibacterial and antioxidant properties

Abstract

Antibacterial and antioxidant fibers that prevent bacterial infection and oxidative damage have attracted great scientific interest in the textile industry and biomedical fields. The present study reports a novel composite fiber (TPU/ZrP/Rr) prepared by incorporating zirconium phosphate (ZrP) with antibacterial property and natural Rheum rhabarbarum (Rr) powder possessing antioxidant activity into thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) matrix via wet-spinning technology. The prepared fibers were systematically characterized for their structure, morphologies, mechanical properties, surface wettability, antioxidant activity and antibacterial performance. The antioxidant activity of TPU/ZrP/Rr was evaluated according to the scavenging rates on three types of radicals of DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), superoxide anion and hydroxyl, and determined as 95.4%, 18.6% and 20.7%, respectively; In addition, TPU/ZrP/Rr fibers exhibited high biocidal efficacy up to 99.99% according to the growth inhibition of Gram positive S. aureus and Gram negative E. coli through contact model. Collectively, the desirable antibacterial and antioxidant performance as well as other properties enable the TPU/ZrP/Rr fibers to be very promising for biomedical textiles and food packaging applications.