Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering , Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University , Atlanta , Georgia 30332 , United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Mar 7;10(9):7709-7716. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b15871. Epub 2018 Feb 26.
Textiles, especially those worn by patients and medical professionals, serve as vectors for proliferating pathogens. Upstream manufacturing techniques and end-user practices, such as transition-metal embedment in textile fibers or alcohol-based disinfectants, can mitigate pathogen growth, but both techniques have their shortcomings. Fiber embedment requires complete replacement of all fabrics in a facility, and the effects of embedded nanoparticles on human health remain unknown. Alcohol-based, end-user disinfectants are short-lived because they quickly volatilize. In this work, common zinc salts are explored as an end-user residual antimicrobial agent. Zinc salts show cost-effective and long-lasting antimicrobial efficacy when solution-deposited on common textiles, such as nylon, polyester, and cotton. Unlike common alcohol-based disinfectants, these zinc salt-treated textiles mitigate microbial growth for more than 30 days and withstand commercial drying. Polyester fabrics treated with ZnO and ZnCl were further explored because of their commercial ubiquity and likelihood for rapid commercialization. ZnCl-treated textiles were found to retain their antimicrobial coating through abrasive testing, whereas ZnO-treated textiles did not. Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry analyses suggest that ZnCl likely hydrolyzes and reacts with portions of the polyester fiber, chemically attaching to the fiber, whereas colloidal ZnO simply sediments and binds with weaker physical interactions.
纺织品，尤其是患者和医务人员所穿的衣物，是病原体传播的载体。上游制造技术和终端用户的使用习惯，如在纺织纤维中嵌入过渡金属或使用基于酒精的消毒剂，可以抑制病原体的生长，但这两种技术都有其缺点。纤维嵌入需要彻底更换设施中的所有织物，而且嵌入的纳米颗粒对人体健康的影响仍不清楚。基于酒精的终端用户消毒剂的有效期很短，因为它们会迅速挥发。在这项工作中，我们探索了常见的锌盐作为终端用户残留抗菌剂。当将锌盐溶液沉积在常见的纺织品上，如尼龙、聚酯和棉上时，锌盐显示出具有成本效益且持久的抗菌功效。与常见的基于酒精的消毒剂不同，这些经过锌盐处理的纺织品可以抑制微生物生长超过 30 天，并能承受商业干燥。由于其商业普及性和快速商业化的可能性，我们进一步研究了用 ZnO 和 ZnCl 处理的聚酯织物。研究发现，经过 ZnCl 处理的纺织品在耐磨测试中保留了其抗菌涂层，而经过 ZnO 处理的纺织品则没有。扫描电子显微镜、傅里叶变换红外光谱和差示扫描量热法分析表明，ZnCl 可能水解并与部分聚酯纤维发生反应，从而与纤维发生化学结合，而胶体 ZnO 只是沉淀并通过较弱的物理相互作用结合。
