Sonochemical coating of textile fabrics with antibacterial nanoparticles

The high incidence of hospital-acquired infections places a huge financial burden on our healthcare systems. These infections are also responsible for many millions of deaths each year. Antibacterial fabrics for use in medical textiles, such as hospital uniforms, bedding and wound dressings, can provide a useful weapon in the on-going fight against these infections. The aim of this EU funded Framework 7 project is to develop a pilot line sonochemical coating machine for the production of antibacterial fabrics. The sonochemical coating technology under development is based on a lab scale process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University (BIU). It involves two processes that are driven by acoustic cavitation; the in situ generation of the metal oxide (MO) nanoparticles and the simultaneous high velocity propulsion of these nanoparticles onto a fabric leading to impregnation. Here we report on a comparison of 2 different MO nanoparticle coatings, ZnO and CuO, that were sonochemically applied on to a plain cotton fabric. Both of these coatings were prepared by BIU. In this work, the antibacterial efficacy of the coated fabrics was quantitatively assessed using the absorption method from BS EN ISO 20743:2007. Both types of metal oxide nanoparticle displayed antibacterial activity against all of the test bacteria with particularly high levels of bacterial reduction observed with the CuO coating. The results presented here are from an EU Framework 7 funded project (SONO, EU Project Number: 228730). The project is a collaboration between 17 partner organizations from 10 different European countries. Further details can be found on the project website at: www.fp7-sono.eu.