ABSTRACT
G. PREMIKA,1 K. BALASUBRAMANIAN,1 and KISAN M. KODAM2
1Department of Materials Engineering, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Ministry of Defence, Girinagar, Pune 411025, India; Email: meetkbs@gmail.com, balask@diat.ac.in
2Department of Chemistry, University of Pune, Pune 411030, India
14.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 227 14.2 Materials and Methods ............................................................... 228 14.3 Results and Discussions ............................................................. 230 14.4 Conclusions ................................................................................ 235 Acknowledgments ................................................................................. 235 Keywords .............................................................................................. 236 References ............................................................................................. 236
14.1 INTRODUCTION
Surgical robes are the personal protective equipment used by both surgical patients and healthcare workers. In perioperative environment,
patients are at the risk of infections by exogenous and endogenous microorganisms whereas healthcare workers are prone to occupational exposure to blood pathogens. Thus an appropriate protective surgical gown should possess effective protective barrier against transfer of microorganisms (Ramdayal and Balasubramanian, 2013). Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) a main precursor for high quality carbon fibers is well known for its intumescent property, mechanical stability, and chemical resistivity and is utilized in sophisticated textiles. Recently organic-inorganic membranes have gained immense interest as potential “next generation” membranes (Merkel et al., 2003). Inorganic antimicrobial agents like ZnO, TiO2 have established escalating attention due to their stability under high temperature and pressure and as non-toxic agent for human and animals compared to organic substances (Roya and Montazer, 2010).
