Antimicrobial agents for textiles are mainly used in textile materials and their products. With the progress of science and technology and the improvement of living standards, people's requirements for textile comfort, air permeability, safety and other higher and higher, therefore, the corresponding textile antibacterial agents must keep up with the trend of The Times in order to better meet people's requirements. This will make the textile antibacterial finishing agent perfect day by day, the antibacterial sanitary finishing technology will also become mature day by day.

Antimicrobial sanitary finishing is to treat fabrics (including natural fibers, chemical fibers and their blended fabrics) with antimicrobial agents, so as to obtain antibacterial, mildew, odor and other functions; Its purpose is to prevent fabric to be stained by microorganism not only, damage and wear comfortable, more important is to reduce cross infection, prevent transmission of disease, ensure the safety and health of human body.

In the 21st century, antibacterial, deodorant and bacteriostatic finishes have become one of the four functional finishes of fabrics. There are three stages in the development of antibacterial sanitary finishing fabrics. The first stage was from 1955 to 1965, which was the incubation period for the development of antibacterial fabrics. At that time, many people realized the feasibility and use value of antibacterial fabrics and actively participated in the research and development. 1965-1975 was the second stage of antibacterial fabric development. At the early stage of this stage, the main components of antibacterial agents were organic mercury, organic tin, organic copper, organic zinc and some sulfur-containing compounds. The dosage of these drugs was small and the effect was significant. In the second half of the 20th century, the safety of antimicrobials aroused people's concern.

Some organometallic compounds have been found to be toxic to human cells and tissues, causing skin rashes and inflammation. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EAP) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to carry out antimicrobial safety tests. In 1973, Japan enacted regulations on hazardous substances in household goods, implemented safety testing of medical products, and stopped the use of hazardous substances such as organic mercury.

In this stage, the main direction of development is to solve the contradiction between antimicrobial and safety, and step up the development of safe antimicrobial agents. In 1973, Dow Corning Company of the United States announced the successful development of highly effective and safe organic silicon quaternary ammonium salt antibacterial agent, the trade name is DC-5700. The antimicrobial, which cost $190 million to develop and took 25 years to develop, has made it socially acceptable to be both antimicrobial and safe. In 1975, the antimicrobial agent was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration and was put on the market. Since then, antibacterial finishing on the road of stable development.

Since the 1990s, antibacterial sanitary finishing has entered the third stage, with multi-functional products such as antibacterial flame retardant, antibacterial antifouling, antistatic, antibacterial water and oil repelling, as well as new technologies such as antibacterial bleaching one-bath method and antibacterial dyeing one-bath method. Antibacterial sanitary finishing products in the United States, Japan and other countries to achieve industrial production, a large number of products on the market. Many series of antibacterial and mildew-proof agents for textiles have been developed abroad. The most mature antibacterial and deodorant finishing agents mainly include inorganic compounds, complexed metals with fiber, quaternary ammonium salts, guanidines, phenols, fatty acids and fatty acid salts, organic copper compounds, deethylphthalein chitin and nitrogen heterocyclic compounds, etc.

Antimicrobial sanitary finishing technology for fabrics at home and abroad has begun to enter the mature stage, antibacterial finishing cotton fabric antibacterial performance, durability is better than antibacterial synthetic fiber. The emergence of multifunctional products and new processes indicates that a new era of antimicrobial finishing textiles is approaching. With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the sanitary requirements for clothing materials and household products are becoming higher and higher. The continuous improvement of antimicrobial textile requirements has important practical value for improving the level of health care in China and reducing the cross infection in public environment. Therefore, it is imperative to study safe and efficient antimicrobial agents.