Functional nanofibers embedded into textiles for durable antibacterial properties

Abstract

While antibacterial textile materials play an important role in preventing transmission of infectious diseases, poor antibacterial durability limits their applications. As one kind of the well-known additives for functional textiles, nanofibers might be a feasible solution. In this study, nanofibers embedded-textiles (NFs-embedded textiles) with durable antibacterial activity are demonstrated by depositing antibacterial electrospun nanofibers into fiber-mesh of cotton fibers and then spinning the mesh into functional textiles. The as-prepared NFs-embedded textiles exhibited strong antibacterial properties. The inhibition rate was 99.99% for both E. coli and S. aureus. In addition, the cytotoxicity experiment of the prepared textiles revealed that the NFs-embedded textiles had a low cytotoxic response to the seeded cells in vitro. On the basis of these features, sportswear based on the antibacterial textiles was fabricated and presented excellent antibacterial durability, still more than 95% against E. coli and S. aureus after 35 cycles of washing. The NFs-embedded textiles reported in the present article would provide a novel methodology for the durably functional textiles.