Title
Quantitation of polyhexamethylene biguanide biocide on cotton fabric surface
Authors
A. SHYICHUK D. ZIOLKOWSKA and K. MROCZYNSKA

Received August 23, 2013
Published Volume 49 Issue 3-4 March-April
Keywords PHMB, polyhexanide, oligobiguanidine, Amido Black 10B, Attenuated Total Reflectance

Abstract
Two methods of determining the polyhexamethylene biguanide content on cotton fabric with polymer antimicrobial coating have been described. The indirect approach consists in binding of the Naphthol Blue Black dye, which is in excess in the equilibrium solution, by polyhexamethylene biguanide adsorbed onto cotton surface followed by determining the residual dye via spectrophotometry at 620 nm. This method assures high accuracy, however requires rather long time (24 h) until reaction equilibrium is attained. The direct determination of polyhexamethylene biguanide on cotton surface consists in acquiring the ATR-FTIR spectra (256 scans averaged) of the fabric sample, followed by integrating the absorbance values in the range of wavenumbers from 1490 to 1580 cm-1. The peak area obtained in this way is proportional to the polyhexamethylene biguanide content. The ATR-FTIR method has the advantage of being very fast and non-destructive.