Decontamination of laundry at low temperature with CuWB50, a novel copper-based biocidal compound

Abstract

Traditional laundry decontamination relies on thermal disinfection that degrades textiles. We investigated the ability of a novel copper-based biocidal compound, CuWB50, to assist in the decontamination of swatches purposely contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter during "real-life" low-temperature machine washing with and without 2 commercial detergents. Contaminated and noncontaminated swatches were attached to ballast sheets and washed in cold water for 15 minutes in an industrial Electrolux machine. We assessed colony-forming units (cfu) on the swatches and in the postwash water. Low-temperature machine washing produced only partial reductions in viable methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter calcoaceticus baumannii counts on swatches and resulted in cross contamination of other swatches in the same wash. Washing with CuWB50 alone at high concentration (100 mg/L), however, resulted in superior decontamination compared with water alone, whereas washing with a combination of detergent and CuWB50 at low concentration (5 mg/L) yielded synergistic and complete decontamination of swatches and postwash water. Our results show highly effective laundry decontamination using CuWB50 with detergent at low temperature and are timely both in terms of rising energy costs and textile degradation issues.