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In recent years, the textile industry has been moving to novel concepts of products, which could deliver to the user, improved performances. Such smart textiles have been proven to have the potential to integrate within a commodity garment advanced feature and functional properties of different kinds. Among those functionalities, considerable interest has been played in functionalizing commodity garments in order to make them positively interact with the human body and therefore being beneficial to the user health. This kind of functionalization generally exploits biopolymers, a class of materials that possess peculiar properties such as biocompatibility and biodegradability that make them suitable for bio-functional textile production. In the context of biopolymer chitosan has been proved to be an excellent potential candidate for this kind of application given its abundant availability and its chemical properties that it positively interacts with biological tissue. Notwithstanding the high potential of chitosan-based technologies in the textile sectors, several issues limit the large-scale production of such innovative garments. In facts the morphologies of chitosan structures should be optimized in order to make them better exploit the biological activity; moreover a suitable process for the application of chitosan structures to the textile must be designed. The application process should indeed not only allow an effective and durable fixation of chitosan to textile but also comply with environmental rules concerning pollution emission and utilization of harmful substances.

The textile industry has recently been developing innovative products that integrate functional properties within commodity textiles. In particular, research has focussed on the concept of biofunctional textiles, i.e., textile materials possessing beneficial properties for human health. Biofunctional textiles are synthesised by functionalization of fabric surfaces with biopolymers. As an example, the chitosan biopolymer is promising for textile functionalization due to chitosan availability, low cost, safety and unique properties. Yet several challenges have to be overcome. Firstly, the morphology of chitosan must be optimized prior chitosan application to the textile surface. Secondly, the last treatment must be carefully designed in order to achieve an effective and durable functionalization. Lastly, the overall production process must comply with environmental rules concerning pollution emission and utilization of harmful substances. This review describes microencapsulation as a strategy to overcome limitations and to confer better properties to the textile material. The properties of chitosan and the concept of microencapsulation are presented. Then we present the main techniques of chitosan encapsulation. Furthermore, we detail the textile finishing processes and the textile products. Last, the perspectives are discussed in the context of green chemistry and compliance with an environmentally friendly approach.

For producing antibacterial textiles, the conventional finishing processes have high productivity and low processing costs, but textiles finished in these ways exhibit low durability against laundering. Therefore, cotton fabrics were bleached with hydrogen peroxide, finished with triclosan, and then treated with polycarboxylic acids such as 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) and citric acid (CA) as crosslinking agents to provide durable antibacterial properties. The surface of fibers treated with BTCA had a greater crosslinked area, and the surfaces of fabrics treated with CA were exposed to greater amounts of deformation due to the mechanical and chemical influences after 50 launderings. The bleaching and finishing treatments did not dramatically affect the breaking strength. However, the polycarboxylic acid treatment (both BTCA and CA) alone showed reductions in the breaking strength when the acid concentration was increased. The polycarboxylic acids were fairly effective against both bacteria, even at lower concentrations, when they were applied to stand-alone cotton fabrics, whereas the antibacterial activity decreased somewhat after the use of polycarboxylic acid and triclosan in the same recipes. Adding polycarboxylic acids to the antibacterial finishing recipes enhanced the durability after 50 launderings, and the durability of the recipes containing BTCA was much higher than that of the recipes containing CA. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 111: 1.3441352, 2009