Simultaneous sonochemical-enzymatic coating of medical textiles with antibacterial ZnO nanoparticles

• Simultaneous sono/enzymatic coating of cotton with ZnO nanoparticles is proposed.
• The process combines cellulase activation of cotton and uniform ZnO deposition.
• Cellulase performance enhances in US field and improves the ZnO adhesion.
• Efficient inhibition of the growth of medically relevant bacteria is demonstrated.
• The antibacterial effect resists multiple laundry regimes used in hospitals.

The antimicrobial finishing is a must for production of medical textiles, aiming at reducing the bioburden in clinical wards and consequently decreasing the risk of hospital-acquired infections. This work reports for the first time on a simultaneous sonochemical/enzymatic process for durable antibacterial coating of cotton with zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs). The novel technology goes beyond the “stepwise” concept we proposed recently for enzymatic pre-activation of the fabrics and subsequent sonochemical nano-coating, and is designed to produce “ready-to-use” antibacterial medical textiles in a single step. A multilayer coating of uniformly dispersed NPs was obtained in the process. The enzymatic treatment provides better adhesion of the ZnO NPs and, as a consequence, enhanced coating stability during exploitation. The NPs-coated cotton fabrics inhibited the growth of the medically relevant Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli respectively by 67% and 100%. The antibacterial efficiency of these textile materials resisted the intensive laundry regimes used in hospitals, though only 33% of the initially deposited NPs remained firmly fixed onto the fabrics after multiple washings.

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