Design of Silk Fabric Surface with Enhanced Antiseptic Properties through Graft Modification and Iodophor Integration

To improve the hydrophobic character of silk and impart iodine complex ion adsorption, the surface of woven silk fabric is enriched by different functional groups through the grafting of N-vinylpyrrolidone (NVP), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA), and their mixtures (NVP-EGDMA). The dominant fibrous texture of silk enables an efficient graft copolymerization in terms of high grafting yield (>30%) after applying a mild degumming process. The structural and morphological alterations in the silk surface are evidenced with attenuated total reflectance-fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The imparted hydrophilicity property of the samples is revealed by contact angle-wetting time measurements. The usability of the graft-modified samples as an iodophor polymeric substrate is then examined by treatment with I-2/KI solutions, and the results are monitored using UV-vis spectroscopy. It is obtained that the NVP-EGDMA mixture-grafted sample exhibits satisfactorily high iodine adsorption compared to untreated and NVP-grafted silk samples, such as 0.05 g per 1 g fabric with high antibacterial activity against various pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) responsible for hospital-acquired infections. This finding evidences its potential as an alternative antiseptic tissue for biomedical applications.