A promising approach in the development of antibacterial textiles
A present research reports on the synthesis and characterisation of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuONPs) and their application on cotton fabric to increase the bactericidal and hydrophobic properties.
CuONPs-coated cotton fabric has a potential to be employed as a medical textile. Image source: sasint - Pixabay (symbol image).
-The synthesised materials have been subjected to spectroscopic and microscopic characterisations to help in understanding their structure, morphology, size, and composition. Further, upon dispersion of the nanoparticles onto the fabric, its hydrophobicity and mechanical properties were evaluated using electron microscopy and universal testing machine.
Treated cotton fabric exhibits higher tensile strength (32 MPa) than the untreated one (27 MPa), whereas copper nanoparticle-coated cotton fabric shows a fair hydrophobicity.
Greater antibacterial activity
Moreover, CuONPs-treated and untreated cotton fabrics have been analysed for bactericidal activity against various gram-negative and gram-positive strains. Finally, the CuONPs-coated cotton fabric displays greater antibacterial activity against E. coli and exhibits superior antimicrobial activity even after 30 cycles of washing, indicating that the CuONPs-coated cotton fabric has a higher potential to be employed as a medical textile to avoid cross-infection within a clinical environment.
The study has been published in Journal of Coatings Technology and Research, Volume 17 (2020).
