Abstract
In order to achieve effective antimicrobial protection of textile materials against microorganisms, a natural compound called chitosan has become very interesting. In regard to the antimicrobial protection of textile materials, functionalization with chitosan does not affect some other properties, such as antioxidative or any other action. For this reason, it seems appropriate for chitosan to be combined with any natural antimicrobial active compound, such as eugenol, an extract of clove oil. During this research viscose as a representative of cellulose fibers was used, because it can be functionalized relatively easily. In terms of functionalization, the drying temperature of viscose, after antimicrobial compound application onto substrate, as well as the successful synthesis of copolymer chitosan/eugenol is also important. FTIR spectroscopy was used to evaluate the efficiency of synthesizing a chitosan/eugenol graft copolymer. The spectrophotometric method Acid Orange 7 was chosen as a means for determining the proportion of available antimicrobial active amino groups. In addition, microbiological testing of selected pathogenic micro-organisms was also performed. The results were compared with the results for viscose functionalized by a 1% solution of chitosan.