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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