Cotton decorated with CuO-Ag and CuO-Ag-AgBr NPs via an in-situ sacrificial template approach and their antibacterial efficiency.

Cotton fabrics decorated with CuO-Ag and CuO-Ag-AgBr NPs have been prepared using chemically immobilized CuO NPs as sacrificial templates. The objective is to prepare CuO-Ag heterostructures with Ag being intimately in contact with CuO NPs by galvanic replacement reactions without addition of any external reducing agent. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were used to study the morphology and the chemical composition of the nanocomposites formed on the fabrics. The morphology of the ensuing nanostructures was shown to be dependent on the Ag precursor, AgNO, concentration. The antimicrobial activity of the treated fabrics was evaluated against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli as model strains of gram-negative and gram-positive, respectively. The results showed that the fabrics loaded with CuO-Ag and CuO-Ag-AgBr nanocomposites exhibited enhanced sterilization activity compared to the CuO treated fabric.