Cotton-based hydrophobic antimicrobial fabric
A recently published paper describes a scalable, cost-effective coating process that is compatible with the existing industrial finishing processes of fabrics.
In this process, the fabric is continuously dipped in water-based silver salt and the reducing agent solution to impart silver particles on the fiber surface to produce different coated samples. The process is tuned to minimise process cost and material cost and maximise the antimicrobial effectiveness and durability of the fabric.
Significant antibacterial effectiveness
The paper also introduces an easy protective coating technique with silicone binder of the antimicrobial fabric that improves the durability and hydrophobicity of the antimicrobial fabric without sacrificing the comfort properties of textile fabrics. In the presence of silicone binder, the samples showed significant antibacterial effectiveness against two microorganisms, gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria.
The study has been published in Journal of Coatings Technology and Research, Volume 18, 2021.
