International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 54 (2013) 125–130 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect International Journal of Biological Macromolecules jo u r n al hom epa ge: ww w.elsevier.com/locate/ijbiomac Multifunctional ﬁnishing of cotton using chitosan extracted from bio-waste M.D. Teli ∗ , Javed Sheikh, Parag Bhavsar Department of Fibres and Textile Processing Technology, Institute of Chemical Technology, Matunga (E), Mumbai-400019, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 11 October 2012 Accepted 5 December 2012 Available online 13 December 2012 Keywords: Chitosan Cotton Crease recovery Antibacterial properties Formaldehyde release a b s t r a c t In the current work, chitosan extracted from waste shrimp shells was used in ﬁnishing formulation for cotton fabric, along with DMDHEU and other chemicals, imparting multiple performance characteristics such as wrinkle free, antibacterial and ﬂame retardant properties. The ﬁnished fabrics were evaluated for textile properties like tensile strength, bending length, yellowness index and functional properties like crease recovery angle, antibacterial activity and ﬂame retardancy and also for the ecological properties like formaldehyde release. The ﬁnished fabric showed excellent crease recovery, antibacterial property and ﬂame retardancy which were retained to a moderate extent even after 20 washes. Besides formalde- hyde scavenging action, chitosan clearly showed its positive role in imparting multifunctional properties to cotton. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Cellulosic ﬁbres and especially cotton are still the most impor- tant kinds of ﬁbre, because of their numerous advantages [1]. Dominance of cotton in textile apparel industry is due to its var- ied advantages such as ability to withstand the rough laundering treatments, especially under alkaline conditions; good perspiration absorption characteristics, comfort during wear, and the ability to take up the wide range of dyestuffs. However, proneness to wrinkles under even slight crushing and the retention of the wrin- kles for long time give cotton garments a poor rating during the actual wear [2]. Other limitations of cotton as textile ﬁbre includes proneness to microbial attack causing odor, discoloration, ﬂamma- bility, low UV resistance and high quantity of salt requirement for certain important dyeing processes. In the globalised market of textiles the apparel consumers all over the world are found to be demanding functionality in the products. An extensive work has been carried out with an aim of developing innovative textile products by treating textiles with chemical ﬁnishes to impart spe- ciﬁc functional properties in addition of improving their aesthetic value. In the recent years, however among the biopolymers used for functional properties, chitosan is gaining increasing impor- tance in all the ﬁelds including textiles. On the back drop of huge amounts of crab and shrimp shells being abandoned as wastes worldwide by seafood companies, considerable scientiﬁc and tech- nological interest in extracting chitin and chitosan from these ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 22 33612811; fax: +91 22 3361 1020. E-mail address: mdt9pub@gmail.com (M.D. Teli). renewable wastes is being generated [3]. Chitosan is a functional, linear polymer that can be derived by the partial deacetylation of chitin which is the most abundant natural polysaccharide on the earth after cellulose and it can be obtained from the exoskeleton of marine crustaceans, such as crabs, lobsters, shrimps and krill [4]. Chitosan comprises copolymers of glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine and has a combination of many unique properties such as nontoxicity, biocompatibility, and biodegradability [5]. The antimicrobial ability, coupled with its non-toxicity, biodegrad- ability and biocompatibility, facilitate applications of chitosan in food science, agriculture, medicine, pharmaceuticals and textiles [6]. Chitosan is natural cationic polysaccharide, and is known to suppress the metabolism of bacteria when sticking to the bacterial cell wall [7]. Chitosan has been widely used in three areas of textile manufacture. These are the primary production of human-made ﬁbre, textile ﬁbre ﬁnishes, and textile auxiliary chemicals [8]. Various applications of chitosan in textiles have already been reported in the literature [9–22]. Application of chi- tosan from different sources and their antimicrobial activities has been reported [23–25]. The different modiﬁcations of chi- tosan and the resulting antimicrobial activity are also reported in literature [26–29]. The extraction of chitosan from waste shrimp shells and appli- cations in antibacterial ﬁnishing of grafted bamboo rayon [30] and ﬁnishing of denim [31] were reported earlier from our labora- tory. Dimethylol dihydroxy ethylene urea (DMDHEU) is the most commonly used crosslinking agent in the wrinkle free ﬁnishing of cellulosic ﬁbres; however the release of formaldehyde is a big issue as far as user ecology is concerned. In the current work, chitosan extracted from shrimp shell waste was utilized in multifunc- tional ﬁnishing formulation of cotton fabric along with dimethylol 0141-8130/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2012.12.007