Enhanced antimicrobial performance of textiles coated with TiO₂ nanoparticles

Modifying cotton fabrics to obtain significant new properties is of relevance to creating multifunctional textiles that could address challenges across different sectors. One of the critical challenges associated with textiles is hospital-acquired infections, which could be prevented through the utilization of antimicrobial fabrics. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NPs) have been introduced in literature for their photocatalytic antibacterial applications against prevalent microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. A newly developed coating process was utilized that includes chemical modification and nanocoating of cotton fabrics to achieve safe to use products that demonstrate durable and highly effective antibacterial properties. Thorough characterization was conducted to analyze the properties of the utilized materials and investigate the quality of the NPs coating on the cotton fabrics. Bacterial cultures and colony counts were performed using standard microbiological techniques. Bacterial studies revealed that the TiO2 NPs coated textile exhibited a significant antibacterial property with 99.99% bacteria growth reduction for S. aureus and E coli, in comparison to the control cotton fabrics. Coating durability analysis was also conducted by washing the coated fabrics using a standard protocol and repeating the qualitative and antibacterial characterization. The durability study revealed the outstanding performance of the coating technology to withstand at least 40x intensive washing cycles with >98% bacteria growth reduction for S. aureus and E coli. These results demonstrate the effectiveness and commercial suitability of the presented process to produce cotton textiles with outstanding antimicrobial properties that can reduce hospital-obtained infections.