A Facile Method to Prepare Multifunctional Cotton Fabrics based on Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework

The fabrication of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) on the various supported substrates, especially lightweight and flexible substrates have been attempted for many years. In recent years, zeolitic imidazole frameworks (ZIF-8) and fabric composites have attracted researchers’ interest, but the combination of two-dimensional zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-L) and fabric rarely involves. Aiming to this, a two-dimensional ZIF-L was successfully fixed on modified cotton fabrics by a facile in-situ growing method under the same experimental conditions as the synthesis of ZIF-8, and ZIF-L coated cotton fabric (CF-NH2@ZIF-L) has multiple properties like indoor formaldehyde purifying capability, excellent antibacterial properties and good UV protection. The cotton fabric was first modified with 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) and then the ZIF-L crystal films were in situ growth on the amine modified cotton fibers at room temperature in aqueous phase. The CF-NH2@ZIF-L fabric demonstrates excellent antibacterial properties and its antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus is 99.52 % and 99.89 % respectively. In addition, it also has good UV protection and indoor formaldehyde purifying capability. The multifunctional cotton fabric prepared by this method can be viewed as a potential candidate used as decorative textile or air purification material.